Human Factors and Ergonomics

Maureen Hassall and Tania Xiao, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
Penelope Sanderson and Andrew Neal, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Human factors and ergonomics applies scientific information about human cognition and behavior to support the design of
products and systems that enhance human well-being and performance. Human factors and ergonomics professionals
investigate human–system interaction at the individual, group, and organizational levels. The aim is to design products that
augment human physical, cognitive, and motivational capabilities and improve the social, technical, and organizational
aspects of a system. Human factors and ergonomics has been used to improve safety and productivity particularly in complex
sociotechnical systems.

Introduction section, we discuss the origins and history of human factors

“Everything we invent or make is ultimately designed for
human use and benefit” (Chapanis, 1996). As technology and
work systems have evolved they have become larger, more
complex, and more interconnected. The rate of change in such
systems and their increasing complexity have increased the
likelihood that unintended and adverse consequences will
occur. Human factors and ergonomics has emerged as
a profession whose practitioners endeavor to ensure that tools,
products, and systems are designed to be safe, usable, and
useful for humans. Specifically, human factors and ergonomics
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 optimize human well-being and
overall system performance” (www.iea.cc; www.hfes.org).
According to Dul et al. (2012), human factors and ergonomics
is unique because “(1) it takes a systems approach (2) it is
design driven and (3) it focuses on two closely related
outcomes: performance and well-being” (p. 377).
The scope of human factors and ergonomics work has
evolved to be very broad, as shown in Figure 1. Human factors
and ergonomics work is typically performed at one of three
levels of analysis – the individual, group, or organizational
level. The individual level of analysis focuses on interactions
that an individual human might have with an engineered
system, technology, or tool. The group level of analysis focuses
on how groups or teams of humans interact with technology
and how these interactions influence performance. The orga-
nizational level of analysis investigates the influence that
organizational design factors (e.g., organizational structure,
organizational processes, and work design) and the use of
technology have on human well-being and overall produc-
tivity. For each of these levels of analysis, human factors and
ergonomics professionals draw on knowledge from different
disciplines (shown in left column of Figure 1) to investigate
a range of topics (center column of Figure 1) in order to
formulate design interventions intended to human–system
interactions (right column of Figure 1).
In this article, we review the background and scope of
human factors and ergonomics work. In the background
and ergonomics. We then describe the scope of human factors
and ergonomics work in three sections that cover the indi-
vidual, group, and organization levels of analysis. We conclude
the article by outlining some of the future directions and
challenges that the human factors and ergonomics discipline
faces.
Background
The history of human factors and ergonomics has been traced
back to 1857 when Polish scientist Jastrezebowski proposed
the term ‘ergonomics’ to represent the science of human work
(Jastrzebowski, 1857[2001]). After the introduction of mass
production, the scientific study of human physical labor was
reinvigorated by Scientific Management. During this era,
scientific studies of labor adopted techniques such as time and
motion studies to decompose work into standardized func-
tions that represent the ‘best’ way for workers to perform a task
efficiently and with minimal stress.
The next major change in labor studies occurred during the
two World Wars of the twentieth century. In World War I,
intense requirements were placed on factory workers which
resulted in unacceptable levels of fatigue and injuries
(Zionchenko and Munipov, 2005). The responsibility of
improving human well-being at work while ensuring high
levels of productivity was allocated to specially developed
health boards and committees staffed by physiologists,
psychologists, engineers, and doctors (Zionchenko and
Munipov, 2005).
In World War II, rapid technical advancements changed the
nature of human work in a number of ways. For example,
newly developed fighter planes required pilots to manage
complex cockpits and deal with low oxygen and with high g-
forces that they would not survive without supplementary air
and special flying suits (Chapanis, 1996). New technology also
led to the development of screen-based work including radar
and sonar monitoring jobs (Chapanis, 1996). During this time,
psychologists, physiologists, and physicians were recruited to
work cooperatively with military engineers to create designs
that would handle safety and functionality issues associated

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 11 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.22025-4 297
298 Human Factors and Ergonomics

Relevant disciplines Topics invesgated Design intervenons

Business and management
Industrial engineering
Industrial/organizaonal psychology
Law
Sociology
Systems engineering/science
Organizaon level
• Organizaonal structure,
pracces, and decision making Organizaon design
• Organizaon-wide sociotechnical Design of organizaonal
characteriscs/technology – processes, policies, and
personnel interacons procedures
• Organizaonal culture

Business and management
Communicaon studies
Human resource management
Industrial/organizaonal psychology
Social psychology
Sociology
Group level
• Teamwork Decision support tools for groups
• Communicaon and coordinaon Team problem solving aids
• Shared situaon awareness Work design
• Shared mental models Team design
• Group decision making and Team training/crew resource
problem solving management

Individual level – movaonal

Industrial/organizaonal psychology • Employee movaon and atudes Change management
• Employee morale and well-being Job design

Individual level – cognive

Cognive psychology/science
Computer engineering/science
Control systems engineering
Industrial engineering/design
Safety engineering
Systems engineering
• Aenon and percepon
• Situaon awareness
• Memory and mental models
• Problem solving
• Decision making and experse
• Mental workload
Controls and displays design
Decision support systems
Human-automaon task
allocaon
Training
Workplace systems design

Individual level – physical

Anthropology • Sensaon and percepon
Biomechanics • Workplace illuminaon, sound,
Industrial engineering/design temperature, and vibraon Workspace design
Industrial/organizaonal psychology • Physical fague Product design
Medicine • Musculoskeletal posture and Tool design
Physiology movement.
Systems engineering • Physiological stress and strain

Figure 1 Scope of human factors and ergonomics.

with human–technology interactions (Zionchenko and
Munipov, 2005).
After World War II, the size and complexity of work systems
continued to grow. For example, nuclear weapons technology
was converted for use in electricity generation which lead the
development of complex, safety critical nuclear power plants.
The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident in 1979
illustrated the importance of ensuring that industrial systems
were built to suit the human operators and controllers. The
accident was partly caused by the fact that the system design
provided operators with confusing and misleading informa-
tion that led them to make incorrect decisions (Vicente, 1999).
The lessons from Three Mile Island, combined with the
proliferation of computerized interfaces in industry, led to the
emergence of cognitive systems engineering (Hollnagel and
Woods, 1983). Cognitive systems engineering focuses on
designing complex sociotechnical systems to facilitate effective
and adaptive human diagnosis and control during normal and
abnormal operating situations.
As the human factors and ergonomics discipline evolved,
its scientists and practitioners began to form into professional
societies. Two of the more prominent societies today are the
International Ergonomics Association (IEA) and the
USA-based Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES).
Within these two societies are subgroups that focus on specific
aspects and application areas of human factors and ergo-
nomics, such as anthropometry, cognitive engineering and
decision making, ergonomics in design, and individual
differences in performance. Further subgroups focus on
specific applications such as aerospace, aging, healthcare,
safety, and transportation. Today, human factors profes-
sionals draw on knowledge from many disciplines to take an

evidence-based systems approach to improving human
interaction within systems.
Individual Level of Analysis
Much human factors and ergonomics work focuses on the
interaction between individual humans and the technical and
social systems within which they work. Human factors
professionals seek to understand the people who will work in/
with the system, the functions people and technology need to
perform, and how people might go about performing their
required functions. With such an understanding, human
factors and ergonomics professionals can help design systems
that accommodate the natural variability associated with
human performance in ways that help humans achieve the
overall system purpose safely and productively while mini-
mizing workplace stress. Studies that investigate interactions
between individual humans and sociotechnical systems usually
concentrate on physical ergonomics or on cognitive ergonomics
which will be discussed later. There is also a body of research
examining motivational factors.
Physical Ergonomics
Physical ergonomics focuses on designing jobs, tools, equip-
ment, and workspaces to fit the physical attributes of workers.
As IEA notes, “physical ergonomics is concerned with human
anatomical, anthropometric, physiological and biomechanical
characteristics as they relate to physical activity” (www.IEA.cc).
Studies involve understanding the capabilities, constraints,
and variability associated with the human body in order to
design products, processes, and work environments that are
productive, safe, and satisfying for people to use (e.g., Ahram
and Karwowski, 2013). Physical ergonomics professionals
draw on human anthropometrical, biomechanical, and phys-
iological information to design physical environments that
accommodate and enhance human sensation and perception,
human physical postures, and human musculoskeletal
performance (Kroemer and Grandjean, 2009; Marras and
Karwowski, 2006).
Sensation and perception are important because they are
the processes by which humans receive and process informa-
tion from their environment (Wickens et al., 2004). Human
sensory systems include vision, audition, olfaction, gustation,
somasthesis, and the vestibular system. Physical ergonomics
professionals aim to design work environments that enhance
human sensation and perception and exploit its strengths,
rather than harm it. This requires an understanding of how
environmental factors such as light, sound, vibration, and
temperature can be sources of comfort, discomfort, or even
harm to humans. For example, light can help or distract
humans depending on the interaction between properties of
the light (e.g., the size, luminosity, differentiation, and quality
of light), the capabilities, limitations, and variability inherent
in the human visual system, and characteristics of the work that
the human is required to do. Similarly, human performance
can be affected by mismatches among the levels of sound,
temperature, and vibration in a system, tolerability limits
associated with human senses, and the requirements of the
Human Factors and Ergonomics 299
task. Successful physical ergonomics interventions reduce the
occurrence of chronic illnesses and impairments (e.g., hearing
loss); reduce stress; and improve safety, well-being, and
productivity.
Physical ergonomics professionals also investigate the
relationships between work space and tool design on the one
hand, and human anthropometry, physiological, and biome-
chanical data on the other. They study how these relationships
might affect human safety, health, comfort, and performance
(Bridger, 2003). Topics of interest include posture, manual
handling, repetitive movements, musculoskeletal workload,
and physiological stress and strain. Physical ergonomists aim
to produce designs that minimize fatigue, discomfort, muscu-
loskeletal damage, and repetitive strain injuries (Wickens et al.,
2004). They perform scientific studies in order to make
recommendations on how the design of portable devices,
computer input tools, workplace furniture, work station layout,
and jobs could be changed to improve user health, safety,
comfort, and performance. Examples of some physical ergo-
nomics projects include designing cell phones to suit the
attributes of human hands in ways that permits the phone to be
operated with one hand only, designing office chairs with the
adjustability needed to accommodate the range of human
body shapes and sizes, and designing torqueless tools for
astronauts working in zero gravity while enclosed in cumber-
some space suits.
Cognitive Ergonomics
Cognitive ergonomics focuses on human mental processing
abilities and limitations (www.iea.cc). Following the intro-
duction of computerized technology, work has become less
physically demanding, and more cognitively demanding. Many
tasks place heavy demands on attention, perception, memory,
and reasoning. Understanding the strengths and vulnerabilities
of human cognitive processes is required to design products,
interfaces, and systems that can be used safely and effectively by
humans (Hollnagel and Woods, 1983). Cognitive ergonomics
draws on knowledge from cognitive psychology, cognitive
science, computer science, and control engineering. Cognitive
ergonomists seek to design tools and systems based on
a scientific understanding of attention, perception, memory,
mental models, expertise, and mental workload in order to
enhance human situation awareness, problem solving, and
decision-making capabilities (Harris, 2013).
Designing systems that enhance human attention and
perception is important, because the latter are the processes
that collect, filter, and interpret information from the envi-
ronment. The failure to attend to appropriate cues was
a significant factor in Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crash in 1972
where the entire flight deck crew were so focused on dealing
with a faulty landing gear light, they failed to notice that the
plane was losing altitude and failed to hear an altitude warning
alarm (National Transport Safety Board, 1973). Attention and
perception are important components of situation awareness.
Situation awareness has been variously defined. One
commonly used definition comes from Endsley (1988) who
defines situation awareness as “the perception of the elements
in the environment within a volume of time and space, the
comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their
300 Human Factors and Ergonomics
status in the near future” (p. 97). Another definition is that
situation awareness is the “continuous extraction of environ-
mental information, integration of this information with
previous knowledge to form a coherent mental picture, and the
use of that picture in directing further perception and antici-
pating future events” (Dominguez, 1994). Inaccurate situation
awareness has been shown to be a contributing factor to
industrial accidents including aviation accidents (Jones and
Endsley, 1996) and process industry accidents (Kaber and
Endsley, 1998). Hence, creating designs that facilitate accu-
rate situation awareness is a critical prerequisite for ensuring
humans correctly respond to situations.
Accurate situation awareness relies, in part, on human
memory and so-called mental models. Memory is the human
capacity to retain information for future use. Memory is often
categorized into working memory and long-term memory
(Wickens et al., 2004). Working memory stores limited infor-
mation on a short-term, temporary basis so that it can be
referenced and manipulated. Long-term memory stores infor-
mation and its relevant associations on a more permanent
basis. The term ‘mental models’ (Gentner and Stevens, 1983)
refers to a person’s mental representation of a system or object
that includes its purpose and descriptions of how it functions
and behaves. Mental models are useful constructs to help
explain how people comprehend the current status, predict
potential future states, and to troubleshoot any issues with
a system or product. Inaccurate mental models contributed to
the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor incident. Operators
believed that an illuminated control panel light for a pressure
relief valve indicated that the valve was closed, whereas the
light illuminated only when the instruction was given to close
the valve and did not indicate the actual physical position of
the valve (Sanders, 1998). During the accident, the light was
illuminated so operators thought the valve was closed, but it
was actually stuck open. This confusion contributed to the
accident. Human factors and ergonomics professionals aim to
design systems that shape and reinforce accurate mental
models so that humans can make correct diagnoses and take
appropriate actions in normal and emergency situations.
Human interactions within engineered systems and prod-
ucts usually require them to make decisions and often to solve
problems. Decision making is the process that humans use to
determine a forward path of action. Problem solving is the
mental process used to analyze and resolve problems. To make
decisions, people can use different strategies and can be influ-
enced by different biases (Klein, 2009; Kahneman, 2011). For
example, people can make decisions using slow and delibera-
tive processes or rapid heuristic processes. These processes can
be influenced by biases that can lead to the selection of choices
and solutions that are not normatively optimal. Such biases
include confirmation bias, hindsight bias, anchoring, and
framing effects. Bias in decision making can initiate and esca-
late situations that lead to accidents. For example, the decision
making associated with not redesigning o-rings and then
launching space shuttle Challenger when the temperature was
below 53  F was found to be a significant factor in the loss of
the shuttle and all its crew (Rogers et al., 1986). Confirmation
bias was found to be a contributing factor in the misinterpre-
tation of the well integrity test results which, in turn, contrib-
uted to the Deepwater Horizon disaster (Hopkins, 2012).
Conversely, correct decision making was identified as the first
factor that contributed to the successful landing of US Airways
flight 1549 on the Hudson River in 2009 (National Transport
Safety Board, 2010). Studies that investigate human decision
making in real-world contexts are often called naturalistic
decision-making studies (Klein et al., 1993). Human factors
and ergonomics professionals perform such studies to better
understand how to design systems and tools that support
human decision-making processes and minimize biases.
Another area of interest to human factors and ergonomics
professionals working in cognitive ergonomics is the study of
expertise. Human factors and ergonomics professionals seek to
understand the cognitive mechanisms, task factors, and envi-
ronmental situations that contribute to the superior perfor-
mance that we describe as expertise. One model that is used to
understand expert decision making is the Recognition Primed
Decision model which suggests that experienced people use
their recognition of a situation and prior experience with
similar situations to make quick decisions on how to act (Klein
et al., 1993). Understanding the factors that can influence the
acquisition and execution of expertise can help human factors
and ergonomics professionals design tasks and training inten-
ded to facilitate the delivery of expert performance. For
example, by studying expert land mine detection personnel and
using the information to train others, Staszewski (2004) was
able to show an improvement in overall detection rates for low
metal mines from less than 30% to greater than 80% detection.
Another topic of interest in cognitive ergonomics is that of
mental workload. Mental workload is a function of the
cognitive demands associated with task performance and of the
mental processing ability of the person performing the task
(Parasuraman et al., 2008). Performance and safety issues can
arise when the cognitive demands of a task exceed the cognitive
capabilities of the people performing the task. For example,
one of the key factors that contributed to the 1994 explosion at
the Texaco Milford Haven refinery was the overloading of
control room operators who had to act on 275 poorly priori-
tized alarms in 11 min and who had to manage a situation
using control room displays that did not provide an overview
of the process they were controlling (Health and Safety
Executive, 1994). Mental workload problems can also arise
when the task allocation between humans and automation
does not adequately engage human mental processing abilities.
Giving automation the responsibility to perform most control
functions can leave the human operator with a poor under-
standing of system functionality and with a low level of control
skills that hinder effective human control of events that the
automation is not designed to manage (Moray, 1986). For
example, the loss of Air France flight 447 with 228 people on
board in 2009 occurred when the pilots were unable to effec-
tively manage the plane after the autopilot disconnected at
high altitude because the system, including the technology and
training provided, was not designed to help the pilots correctly
diagnose and manually respond to the unexpected situation
(BEA, 2012).
Cognitive ergonomics has also contributed in a number of
ways to design safer, more productive systems by improving
the design of tools, interfaces, and automated processes that
augment the capabilities of individual users. For example,
cognitive ergonomics studies were used during the TADMUS

program – a program that was motivated by the 1988 shooting
down an Iran commercial passenger airline by the USS Vinc-
ennes. TADMUS generated a number of design and training
solutions to help Navy decision makers correctly identify
objects picked up by radar, thereby avoiding such accidents
(Cooke and Durso, 2008). To improve interfaces and auto-
mated processes, cognitive systems engineers have developed
analytic frameworks such as Cognitive Work Analysis
(Rasmussen et al., 1994; Vicente, 1999). Cognitive Work
Analysis underlies the Ecological Interface Design (EID)
approach to designing interfaces and it also guides the alloca-
tion of function between humans and automated systems. EID
interfaces are intended to support the range of cognition that
operators might use to manage anticipated and unanticipated
scenarios while controlling complex systems (Vicente and
Rasmussen, 1992). EID interfaces have been shown to
improve operator problem solving, diagnosis, and control,
especially for unanticipated events (e.g., Jamieson, 2007). They
have also been shown to be easier to learn and use and more
effective in military command and control (Hall et al., 2012).
Motivational Factors
Motivation of the individual worker is not often covered in
treatments of human factors and ergonomics because it is
conventionally more strongly associated with organizational
psychology. Nonetheless, individual motivation is an impor-
tant factor that has received more attention in, for example, the
francophone work psychology tradition, which has contributed
ideas to cognitive ergonomics (e.g., Pinder, 2007). Motiva-
tional research has examined the role of employee motivation,
attitudes, and well-being within sociotechnical systems
(Rousseau, 1977). Work and job design are major factors that
influence motivation (Campion and Thayer, 1985, 1989). For
example, job simplification is a widespread practice, being
driven by technological, regulatory, and societal changes. Job
simplification involves the proceduralization of work and the
removal of autonomy and discretion on the part of the
employee. Research has consistently demonstrated that job
simplification adversely affects employee motivation and well-
being. People need enriched jobs that provide autonomy,
variety, and meaning (Pan and Werblow, 2012). In contrast,
job enrichment leads to improvements in job satisfaction,
productivity, and other employee and business benefits
(Humphrey et al., 2007). How worker motivation is ensured
during organizational design and preserved during organiza-
tion change will be covered in the section on the group level of
analysis in human factors and ergonomics.
Employee motivation and attitudes are also important
during organizational change and when improving occupa-
tional safety. Employee motivation and attitudes play a critical
role in organizational change. Organizational change initia-
tives frequently fail due to employee resistance. Similarly, in
the area of occupational safety, employee motivation and
attitudes play a critical role in determining whether employees
will comply with safe work practices and take a proactive
approach to safety (e.g., by helping co-workers).
The work done by the human factors and ergonomics
community to improve human well-being and system
performance at an individual level has more recently been
Human Factors and Ergonomics 301
extended to the group and organizational interactions. We
discuss the work done at group and organization levels in the
next two sections of the article.
Group Level of Analysis
Humans often perform work and interact with systems in
groups or teams. For example, in the cockpits of commercial
aircraft the captain and co-pilot work together to successfully
manage flight operations. Similarly, in medical operating
rooms, surgeons, anesthetists, and nurses need to work
together to ensure the surgical procedure is successful. As
a result, human factors and ergonomics studies can focus on
how groups or teams of humans interact to perform tasks in
engineered systems. Human factors and ergonomics
professionals draw on knowledge from industrial and
organizational psychology, social psychology, sociology,
industrial engineering, and other disciplines to investigate
how system design influences team effectiveness. Team
effectiveness is affected by both individual and group
attributes. Individual attributes include the physical,
cognitive, and motivational attributes discussed in the
previous section. Group attributes include teamwork, shared
situation awareness, shared mental models, and group
decision making. These will be discussed next.
Human factors and ergonomics professionals are inter-
ested in how to design products and systems that enhance
effective teamwork. A first important prerequisite of effective
teamwork is that team members should understand the
objectives of the team, where the team fits with other teams,
and the overall organizational objectives. A second impor-
tant prerequisite is that team members should understand
their own and other team members’ roles, responsibilities,
and preferences. When team members understand the
objectives and task demands required of the team as well as
the knowledge, tendencies, and attitudes of team members,
they are better able to coordinate team activities (Cannon-
Bowers and Salas, 2006). A third important prerequisite of
effective team work is good communication and coordina-
tion. The link between effective teamwork and improved
performance has been made in the number of contexts
including healthcare (e.g., Wheelan et al., 2003) and aviation
(e.g., Leedom and Simon, 1995; Stout et al., 1997). The
Herald of Free Enterprise sinking which resulted when the ferry
left port with its bow doors open is an example of the
consequences that can occur as a result having systems that
tolerate poor teamwork.
A fourth important aspect of team effectiveness is ‘shared’
situation awareness. In a study of the process industry, it was
found that 50% of operations failures associated with reported
incidents were due to failures in shared situation awareness
(Bullemer and Reising, 2013). Shared situation awareness has
two components: individual team members’ situation aware-
ness (described in previous section) and the shared under-
standing of the situation that is present in the team at a given
point in time. The shared understanding of the situation can be
affected by the context (e.g., objectives to achieve, resources
available), environmental conditions (e.g., climatic or work-
place conditions), and temporal elements (e.g., time pressure,
302 Human Factors and Ergonomics
risk levels) (Salas et al., 2006). The quality of a team’s shared
situational awareness can affect team communication and
coordination activities as well as the attitudes of, and demands
placed on, team members. Shared situation awareness also
depends, in part, on shared mental models. Understanding
shared mental models helps reveals (1) the commonality
between the mental representations held by team members
and (2) how the mental representation of the system is
distributed or shared among different team members. As
Cooke and Gorman (2006) have noted, by considering both
perspectives “it is possible to (1) assess the degree to which
each member has positional knowledge or knowledge relevant
to his or her own role, and (2) the degree to which each team
member has inter-positional knowledge or knowledge
pertinent to other team roles” (p. 272). With such an
understanding, human factors and ergonomics professionals
can advise on ways that system designs can promote effective
shared situation awareness and shared mental models within
groups and teams.
Group decision making is also a key topic for human factors
and ergonomics at the group level. Group decision making
differs from individual decision making in that it can be
influenced by group biases such as group think, internal
conflict, group processes, group ethics, social norms of the
group, and the combination of individual member preferences
and needs. Understanding group decision-making processes is
important because it has been identified as a significant
contributing factor in major accidents including the loss of
the space shuttle Challenger (Rogers et al., 1986) and in the
Deepwater Horizon disaster (Hopkins, 2012). By
understanding group decision-making processes and
influences, human factors professionals can design decision
support tools and problem-solving aids that promote more
effective group decision making.
Other design outcomes that might result from the group
level of analysis include changes to team training initiatives,
job design, and team design. For example, crew resource
management (CRM) is a human factors-inspired training
program that focuses on improving crew performance,
coordination, and activity management within a particular
context. CRM was initially designed to help pilots work
together in cockpits to successfully control airplanes through
a variety of flight conditions and contingencies. The success
of CRM was highlighted in the investigation report of US
Airways Flight 1549 crash landing in the Hudson River which
stated that “contributing to the survivability of the accident
was (1) the decision-making of the flight crewmembers and
their crew resource management during the accident
sequence” (National Transport Safety Board, 2010). The
principles underlying CRM have been extended to other
activities such as maintenance work and to other domains
such as healthcare. An example of a human factors and
ergonomics-inspired job and team redesign initiative that
lead to significant improvements was the redesign of an
emergency response organization within a nuclear power
plant (Klinger and Klein, 1999). The redesign
recommendations included suggested changes to the team
composition and emergency response operations room
layout which led to fewer people, improved situation
awareness, and better response outcomes.
Organization Level of Analysis
Human factors and ergonomics professionals recognize that
human well-being and overall system performance can be
affected by organizational factors. The study of such factors is
referred to as organizational ergonomics or macroergonomics.
Organizational ergonomics draws on information from
organizational science, management science, complexity
science, and sociotechnical systems theory to understand how
organizational structures, policies, practices, and processes
affect human performance and productivity. The aim of
organizational ergonomics is to ensure the organization as
a whole is designed to facilitate safe and effective interactions
between technological subsystems, personnel subsystems, and
the external environment. As Hendrick (2005) has noted,
“work systems that are fully harmonized and compatible with
their sociotechnical characteristics.can result in synergistic
improvements in various organizational effectiveness criteria,
including health, safety, comfort, and productivity” (p. 43).
Topics of interest include organizational design, work design,
and the design of organization-wide processes.
Organizational design is the design of the whole organiza-
tion and it can be described using three dimensions:
complexity, formalization, and centralization (Hendrick and
Kleiner, 2002). Complexity is the degree to which organiza-
tional subunits are differentiated in function and interlinked by
coordinating processes. Formalization is the degree to which
organizational processes are standardized. Centralization is the
extent to which decision making and authority are concen-
trated within the organization. Organization complexity,
formalization, and centralization influence how work is
managed at the team level. These three organizational attri-
butes can also influence the culture and behavioral norms
within subunits and teams. The importance of organizational
factors on human well-being and overall system performance
was highlighted as a significant contributor to the 2000
Walkerton water contamination incident that resulted in
2400 people becoming ill and 7 dying (Leveson et al., 2003)
and the 2003 space shuttle Columbia disaster which resulted
in the loss of the shuttle and its crew (Columbia Accident
Investigation Board, 2003). Human factors and ergonomics
professionals can investigate and recommend organizational
design interventions that promote effective interactions
between people and technology at an individual, team,
subsystem, and organizational level.
Work design involves determining how to arrange work to
enhance employee satisfaction and motivation while delivering
organizational quality and productivity requirements. Work
design initiatives consider task variability factors, work sched-
uling factors (e.g., shift rosters, flexible working arrangements),
physical location of work, productivity requirements, regula-
tory requirements, employee safety, and social and motiva-
tional needs as well as the needs of other stakeholders.
Understanding the influence that work design has on human–
system interactions is important when introducing
organizational level change. For example, between 50 and
75% of technology implementation projects experience some
degree of failure (Umble and Umble, 2002). Some of the
reasons for these failures can be summarized as a failure to
consider system-wide effects of how the technology impacts

user needs, the current work design arrangements, and the
organization’s current use of technology. Human factors
and ergonomics professionals can use macroergonomic
techniques to help ensure that organization-wide change
projects enhance effective interactions between work designs,
workers, and technology at an organization level (Moro, 2009).
The term ‘organizational culture’ refers to the shared values
and assumptions of the members of that organization, and is
sometimes described as ‘the way things are done around here’.
Culture plays an important role in shaping employee behavior
and employee response to new systems and processes. For
example, safety management systems are now mandatory in
many jurisdictions; however, a safety management system is
unlikely to be effective unless there is a culture in which safety
is valued and employees feel able to raise safety issues without
fear of reprisal (Reason, 1997).
Another area where human factors and ergonomics
professionals provide advice is on the design of organizational
processes. An example of such an organizational process that is
frequently recommended by macroergonomics professionals is
participatory ergonomics. Participatory ergonomics, an exten-
sion of participatory management, is the process by which
employees who are affected by a problem or initiative are
involved in identifying the interventions that best suit them
and that also help to achieve the organizational objectives. As
Hendrick (2005) comments, “the participatory approach has
proven to be particularly effective in establishing an ergo-
nomics and safety culture, which sustains performance and
safety improvements that initially result from the macro-
ergonomic intervention” (p. 55).
Organizational ergonomics can deliver significant
improvements to human well-being and to overall system
performance. Hendrick (2005) reported that organizational
ergonomics interventions have achieved improvements of
50–90% in productivity or quality. The improvements were
obtained by adopting the following macroergonomic criteria
for effective work system design (Hendrick, 2005):
1. Joint design. The approach used should be human-centered,
where the personnel subsystem is designed jointly with the
technological subsystem and the design process involves
extensive employee participation.
2. Humanized task approach. The allocation of functions and
tasks to humans or machines should first consider human
professional, cultural, and psychosocial needs before allo-
cating the function or task to a human or a machine.
3. Sociotechnical systems approach. Consideration and eval-
uation of an organization’s sociotechnical characteristics
should be integrated into the process of designing any work
system.
Conclusion
The nature of human–systems interaction at the individual,
group, and organization level will continue to change as
technology, people, and systems themselves continue to
change. We conclude this article with a brief discussion on
the future challenges and opportunities facing the human
factors and ergonomics profession.
Human Factors and Ergonomics 303
The development and expansion of digital technology will
continue to create paradigm shifts in people’s work and life-
styles (e.g., voice recognition, robotics, and augmented cogni-
tion). Such paradigm shifts offer opportunities for new
interactive experiences, new social challenges, new types of
work designs, and new forms of organization. For example, the
research currently being undertaken in ‘nano’ technologies –
molecular scale technologies – could lead to the emergence
of nanoergonomics studies that seek to improve human
interactions with extremely small (nano-sized) devices and
machines (Karwowski, 2006). Human factors and
ergonomics professionals will need to stay abreast of
technology advances in order to continue to propose design
improvements that enhance human well-being and overall
system performance.
However, the human factors and ergonomics discipline
has traditionally been one that reacts to technology devel-
opments and safety issues. The discipline needs to become
more proactive in anticipating and driving technology
advances. Human factors and ergonomics needs to “try to
anticipate how the nature of work will change so that it can
both foresee what work will be and propose what work
should be” (Hollnagel, 2014). As a field of endeavor, human
factors and ergonomics also needs to drive technology
advancements by integrating itself into every step in the
system lifecycle, from operational needs analysis, to concept
development, engineering design, implementation and
commissioning, operations and maintenance, and even
decommissioning (Chapanis, 1996). To be more proactive,
human factors and ergonomics professionals need to
concentrate on the initial steps of the system development
lifecycle. With early involvement, human factors and ergo-
nomics professionals can help to identify, specify, and help
create new technology that aids human well-being and
overall system performance, rather than just trying to
improve existing technologies. Examples of technologies
created from human factors and ergonomics initiatives
have begun to emerge especially from the healthcare sector.
For example, human factors and ergonomics researchers are
developing implantable early warning devices for people
who are at risk of having a heart attack (Day and Young,
2012). This work needs to be extended across other
industries and to help improve other types of human–
system interactions.
Another challenge that human factors and ergonomics
faces is the need to continue to work on the positioning of
the discipline in relation to science and engineering. As
a scientific discipline, human factors and ergonomics has
accumulated, and must continue to accumulate, a substantial
body of knowledge from systematic studies that relate to
human–system integration (Dul et al., 2012). As an
engineering discipline, human factors and ergonomics has
applied, and needs to continue to apply, the principles and
knowledge gained from scientific studies to the
specification and design of technology, products, and
systems. By continuing to advance on both the scientific
and engineering fronts, the human factors and ergonomics
discipline will increase its contribution to the design of
systems that enhance effective interactions between
humans and their environment.
304 Human Factors and Ergonomics
In this article, we have provided a high level overview of
human factors and ergonomics. For further reading we
recommend the following texts:
l Karwowski, W., 2006. International encyclopedia of ergo-
nomics and human factors. CRC/Taylor & Francis, Boca
Raton, FL.
l Salvendy, G., 2006. Handbook of human factors and
ergonomics. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.
l Wickens, C.D., Lee, J.D., Liu, Y., Becker, S.E., 2004. An
introduction to human factors engineering. Pearson Pren-
tice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
See also: Decision Making, Psychology of; Decision Making:
Nonrational Theories; Group Processes, Social Psychology of;
Industrial–Organizational Psychology: Science and Practice;
Organizational Climate in the Work Setting; Technological
Change and the Sociotechnical System, Applied Psychology of;
Work Motivation; Workplace Stress.
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