Human Factors Engineers and Ergonomists
Have you ever wondered, while typing on the keyboard of your phone or computer, why it's laid out the way it is? Why are the letters arranged randomly instead of alphabetically, whether in Arabic or English? To understand this, we need to go back several centuries to the invention of the typewriter. The letters on old typewriters were arranged alphabetically, but experts at the time found that writers using those machines typed so quickly that it caused a lot of spelling errors, and printed documents often ended up with jumbled words or extra letters that made them hard to read. Some experts back then thought the solution might be to change the letter arrangement on typewriters so that writers would take a bit longer to find each key, which would increase their focus on what they were writing. And it worked — spelling errors dropped significantly compared to before. The letter arrangement on typewriters went through many stages over the following decades until it settled into the layout we see today on the keyboards of smartphones and computers. But the question here is: who are the experts responsible for these kinds of things related to creating harmony between humans and machines? There's a field called human factors engineering, which studies everything that surrounds humans — machines, products, furniture — and examines the components and systems they run on, adjusting and developing their design to make them more productive and better suited to how humans actually use them. For example, if you look at any car, you'll notice the driver's seat is on the left, and the controls and buttons the driver uses are positioned near their right hand. Cars are designed this way because most people around the world are right-handed rather than left-handed. Naturally, human factors experts — also called ergonomists — are the ones who research and study these matters, and their main task is studying and developing the machines and products found in all the different environments where people live, whether at home, at work, in healthcare facilities, entertainment venues, or elsewhere.
Meet the Writer: Waleed Abo Omiraa
What You'll Actually Do
The core tasks and responsibilities that fill a typical day.
- Write, review, or comment on documents, such as proposals, test plans, or procedures.
- Train users in task techniques or ergonomic principles.
- Review health, safety, accident, or worker compensation records to evaluate safety program effectiveness or to identify jobs with high incidence of injury.
- Provide human factors technical expertise on topics, such as advanced user-interface technology development or the role of human users in automated or autonomous sub-systems in advanced vehicle systems.
- Investigate theoretical or conceptual issues, such as the human design considerations of lunar landers or habitats.
- Estimate time or resource requirements for ergonomic or human factors research or development projects.
- Conduct interviews or surveys of users or customers to collect information on topics, such as requirements, needs, fatigue, ergonomics, or interfaces.
- Recommend workplace changes to improve health and safety, using knowledge of potentially harmful factors, such as heavy loads or repetitive motions.
- Provide technical support to clients through activities, such as rearranging workplace fixtures to reduce physical hazards or discomfort or modifying task sequences to reduce cycle time.
- Prepare reports or presentations summarizing results or conclusions of human factors engineering or ergonomics activities, such as testing, investigation, or validation.
- Perform statistical analyses, such as social network pattern analysis, network modeling, discrete event simulation, agent-based modeling, statistical natural language processing, computational sociology, mathematical optimization, or systems dynamics.
- Perform functional, task, or anthropometric analysis, using tools, such as checklists, surveys, videotaping, or force measurement.
- Operate testing equipment, such as heat stress meters, octave band analyzers, motion analysis equipment, inclinometers, light meters, thermoanemometers, sling psychrometers, or colorimetric detection tubes.
- Integrate human factors requirements into operational hardware.
- Establish system operating or training requirements to ensure optimized human-machine interfaces.
- Inspect work sites to identify physical hazards.
- Develop or implement human performance research, investigation, or analysis protocols.
- Develop or implement research methodologies or statistical analysis plans to test and evaluate developmental prototypes used in new products or processes, such as cockpit designs, user workstations, or computerized human models.
- Design cognitive aids, such as procedural storyboards or decision support systems.
- Conduct research to evaluate potential solutions related to changes in equipment design, procedures, manpower, personnel, or training.
- Assess the user-interface or usability characteristics of products.
- Collect data through direct observation of work activities or witnessing the conduct of tests.
- Apply modeling or quantitative analysis to forecast events, such as human decisions or behaviors, the structure or processes of organizations, or the attitudes or actions of human groups.
- Analyze complex systems to determine potential for further development, production, interoperability, compatibility, or usefulness in a particular area, such as aviation.
- Advocate for end users in collaboration with other professionals, including engineers, designers, managers, or customers.
- Design or evaluate human work systems, using human factors engineering and ergonomic principles to optimize usability, cost, quality, safety, or performance.