What’s human factors design?

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Human factors design is concerned with enabling humans and machines to coordinate safely and effectively. This typically involves minimizing confusion for intuitive tasks, streamlining training programs, and ensuring that the operator is not exposed to unnecessary safety risks. Human factors design can be thought of in terms of physical and training aspects. Physical human factors considerations are generally required for all machine applications involving continuous interaction with humans. The training component of human factors, on the other hand, becomes important in specialized machinery.

Although elements of human factors design originated later in the past, the discipline grew in prominence during World War II. At the time, many pilots were trained on one cockpit design only to be assigned to an aircraft on another design. Pilots often found it difficult to change control conventions; for example, climbing required pulling the flight stick back in some designs, but pushing it away on others. This lack of attention to human factors design has led to the deaths of many pilots.

The most immediate aspect of human factors design is the physical component. Human physical factors include the size and shape of the machine structures with which humans interact. These interactions often happen intuitively, so engineers need to keep this in mind when designing. Many interactive structures in an automobile interior fall into this category because they are designed to be operated by hand on an intuitive level. Few automobiles require drivers to thoroughly study the owner’s manual before being able to drive safely.

Another component of human factors design is training. This aspect of human factors is typically reserved for more specialized machinery. Unlike automobiles, construction bulldozers are typically not designed to be easily operated by the general public. Rather, workers undergo specialized training to learn how to operate them. When designing training programs, planners focus on how to deliver training lessons effectively, how much knowledge needs to be learned, and how difficult it is to remember the training.

Space exploration is a particularly challenging field for human factors design. In the space environment, both the capabilities and limitations of humans are significantly altered from those on Earth. Microgravity allows humans to move around with extremely heavy equipment, but it can also prevent them from easily gaining a foothold for leverage. When this happens, it can become difficult to perform basic tasks like turning a ratchet. Spacecraft must be designed with these unique considerations in mind.

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