What is Human Factors Engineering?
Human factors is a body of information about human abilities, human limitations, and other human characteristics that are relevant to design. Human Factors Engineering (HFE) is the application of human factors information to the design of tools, machines, systems, tasks, jobs, and environments for safe, comfortable and effective human use. Students will study relevant characteristics of human beings to be able to successfully design systems that integrate humans and machines or tools. Some specialized areas of study include human computer interaction (HCI), ergonomics, safety, usability engineering, human perception, human cognition, and engineering psychology.
The human factors’ program trains students in the application of psychological principles to “real-world” problems. Particular expertise can be developed in such areas as cognitive ergonomics, cognitive task analysis, computational cognitive modeling (such as ACT-R), Usability Evaluation Methods, the psychology of programming, expertise, interface design, transportation, and telecommunications. The psychology program excels in the development of quantitative skills. Programming expertise is also emphasized. Students in our Human Factors’ program can elect to focus on either professional training or preparation for doctoral programs. Both tracks stress the analytic and empirical methodologies that are used in all phases of interactive systems design (where this is broadly defined to include any human-machine system). The power and interpretation of these techniques reside in their close ties to cognitive theory. The professional training track emphasizes course work and practical experi
Human factors engineering is a generalist term used to describe a number of disciplines that study how users appreciate and interact with products. This may include product design and branding, product psychology, user-interface design, and education factoring. Human factors engineering is referred to in much of the world as ergonomics, and may occasionally be shortened to simply human factors or human engineering. Human factors draws on experts from many different disciplines to paint a clearer picture of how a human will interact with a product. Of particular use in human factors are engineers, designers, psychologists, and computer programmers. In some situations, other experts may be needed, depending on the specific product — educational products may need the insights of an education professional, while a speech program may use a linguist to determine how people are most likely to interact with the software. The essential goal of human factors is to analyze how people are likely
What does a Human Factors Engineer do? [ Back to top ] Human Factors Engineers work closely with the users of the systems they are studying to determine methods of improving productivity, safety and comfort while decreasing the amount of errors made in relevant tasks. Some of the methods used to derive objective and subjective measurements from the user are: focus groups, usability studies, time-motion studies, surveys, questionnaires and interviews. Do all consumer product manufacturers have Human Factors departments? [ Back to top ] No. Only very large consumer product companies have their own Human Factors departments. In the case of software companies, the human factors/usability team might be incorporated into the development group. Companies that are too small to have their own departments subcontract specialized human factors or usability engineering firms to perform their research, develop and test their designs. On what basis are products, tasks or tools evaluated? [ Back to t
