Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
1
Introduction to Human Factors and
Ergonomics
Science never appears so beautiful as when applied to the
uses of human life.
Thomas Jefferson
1.1
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of human factors and ergonomics
(HFE) and to show how these two sciences developed—ergonomics in Europe and HFE
in the U.S.
The word
ergonomics
is derived from the Greek words
ergo
(work) and
nomos
(laws).
It was used for the first time by Wojciech Jastrzebowski in a Polish newspaper in 1857
(Karwowski, 1991). In the U.S.,
human factors engineering
and
human factors
have been
close synonyms. European ergonomics has its roots in work physiology, biomechanics,
and workstation design. Human factors, on the other hand, originated from research in
experimental psychology, where the focus was on human performance and systems
design (Chapanis, 1971).
But there are several other names, such as engineering psychology, and more recently
cognitive engineering and cognitive systems engineering. The latter emphasizes the
importance of human information processing for our science (Hollnagel and Woods,
2005).
Despite the differences between human factors and ergonomics in the type of
knowledge and design philosophy, the two approaches are coming closer. This is partly
due to the introduction of computers in the workplace. Design of computer workplaces
draws from a variety of human factors and ergonomics knowledge (see Table 1.1). We
can illustrate the problem as shown in Figure 1.1. Here a user of a computer is perceiving
information on a display. The information is interpreted and an appropriate action is
selected. The action is executed manually as a control input, which in turn affects the
information status on the display. A new display is generated.
To solve a problem that is related to computer workplaces, an ergonomist must be able
to identify the problem, analyse it, and suggest improvements in the form of design
solutions. This leads to our first maxim:
The primary purpose of human factors and ergonomics is design.
In designing a workplace, the existing situation must first be analysed, new design
solutions must be synthesized, and these design solutions must be analyzed again. The
