Ergonomics, Human Factors and Efficiency

The International Ergonomics Association states that ‘Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimise human wellbeing and overall system performance. HFE helps to harmonise things that interact with people in terms of people’s needs, abilities and limitations.

One aspect of human factors that is quite visible in many workplaces relate to signage. We don’t even need to be able to read to understand the meaning, that a green sign with white writing on it and which is positioned over a door way is an emergency path from the area you are in. A glance at the green sign would be enough. But what if there were no standard color fro the exit sign? What if it were green writing on black back ground, or any other randonm color combination, and what if workplaces could choose their own colors? It is not hard to imagine that the efficiency of getting people safely out of a building in an emergency circumstance would be reduced. Same would go for signs that are in other areas of workplaces like warning, caution and hazard signs. Also on the road ways. If we see a white sign with a red circle on it we know there is a change in speed conditions comming up even before we can fread the black writting stating what the speed limit actually is.

The way we interact with computers has some similar concepts. Blue underlined text gives indicates that a hyper link is likley present. Clicking on the green arrow facing to the right would indicate moving forward one step while pressing on the red arrow facing to the left would indicate going backward one step.

Wherever human’s interact with machines of any kind, consideration of human factors is a needed requirement of not only the efficiency, but also the safety design process.