Human Factors in Design System

HUMAN NATURE &

PHYSICAL ABILITY, INDIVIDUAL,
MEMORY, ATTITTUDE, ERGONOMICS,
HUMAN-MACHINE, STREOTYPE,
ORGANIZATIONAL AND
HUMAN FACTOR
The Nature of Individual Cognitive and Physical
Capabilities

How do we process information?

How can we improve our everyday memory?

Why do we make mistakes?

Why do we experience stress?

 HUMAN FACTORS
qHuman Factors and Ergonomics (HF & E) is a
multidisciplinary field incorporating contributions
from psychology, engineering, biomechanics and
industrial design.
qIn essence, it is study of designing equipment and
devices that fit the human body and its cognitive
abilities.
qThe two terms “human factor” and “ergonomics” are
essentially synonymous.
The International Ergonomics Association defines
ergonomics or human factors

“Ergonomics (or human factors) 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 method to design in
order to optimize human well-being and
overall system performance”
qHF & E fulfills the goals of health and safety and
productivity. It is relevant in the design of such things
as safe furniture and easy-to-use interfaces to
machines and equipment.
qProper ergonomics design is necessary to prevent
repetitive strain injuries and other musculoskeletal
disorders, which can develop over time and can lead
to long term disability.
qHuman factors and ergonomics is concerned with the
“fit” between the user, equipment and their
environments.
qIt takes account of the user’s capabilities and
limitations in seeking to ensure that tasks, functions,
information and environment suit each user.
qTo access the fit between a person and the used (its
size, shape and how appropriate it is for the task),
and the information used (how it is presented,
accessed and changed).
qDesign systems that accommodate the limits of the
human user.
Maeister studies of how humans accomplish work
related tasks in the context of human-machine system
operation, and how non-behavioral variables affect that
accomplishment

“ behavioral” = “ non-behavioral” =
psychological physical constraints
constraints – can a human
– how do humans physically operate
process information? system?
 REDUCE
ERRORS

GOALS
MAKING HUMAN
INTERACTION
WITH THE
SYSTEMS
ENHANCE
SAFETY INCREASE
AND PRODUCTION
COMFORT
 TO ERR IS HUMAN
Cognitive errors fall in three categories:
Perception Errors
The operator making error did not grasp the
needed information for any number of reasons.

Decision Errors
The operator did not respond to the signal or
information.

Action Errors
The operator reacted, but activated the wrong
control or activated the correct control improperly
Where are human factor situated?
Experimental Psychology (EP)
qThe scientific study of mind, brain and behavior.
qWhy humans think and behave the way they do
qEP is concerned with underlying principles of
behavior (why?), while human factors are more
concerned with design (how?).
qPsychologists treat individual as an “information
processing system”
qErgonomics (from Greek ergon ‘work’ + nomics) is
the application of scientific information concerning
humans to the design of objects, systems and
environment for work use.
qHowever, individuals represent far more complex
systems than most machines.
qInteractions in social systems increase complexity.
qHuman-Computer Interaction (HCI) the design,
evaluation and implementation of interactive
computing systems for human use and the study of
major phenomena surrounding them.
What happens in engineering design?
WHY DO WE NEED HUMAN FACTOR ENGINEERING?
HFE is applied to the design of work systems, workplaces
and products
To reduce risk to health, personal and process
1 safety and the environment.

To eliminate, reduce the likelihood or mitigate

2 the consequences of human error.

To improve human efficiency and productivity,

3 thereby enhancing operational performance.

4 To improve user acceptance of new facilities.

 HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN (HCD)
A design philosophy, or methodologist principle, that
centers the design process around the user.
Three important
attributes

Focus on the roles of humans in

complex systems.

Design objectives are elaborated in

terms of roles of humans.

Specific design issues follow from

these objectives
Four general approaches to HCD:
1 2

• Understand users, • Observation and

their tasks and measurements to
their gather user
environmental requirements and
early. limitations.

3 4

• Iterative design • Participatory

using prototypes, design where
where rapid users are directly
changes are made involved as part of
in design. the design team.
q Systems have increased in size, scale and complexity to
increase performance.
q People will increasingly become like “cogs of machines”
q However, machines can never be legally, ethically and
socially responsible for their actions.
q Hence, regardless of systems’ scale and sophistication,
humans will always have the ultimate responsibility of
their operations such as
q Perceive the nature of these responsibilities, and
q Have appropriate levels of authority and knowledge to
fulfill them
Human centered design should:
qEnhance human abilities
qHelp overcome human limitations
qFoster user acceptance

Design issues:
qFormulate the right problem-make sure that system
objectives and requirements are right
qDesign an appropriate solution- excellence in
engineering is necessary but not sufficient to assure
that system design is successful
qDevelop the solution to perform well-operability,
maintainability, supportively
qAssure user satisfaction
HUMAN FACTORS IN SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
ROLE OF HF IN SYSTEM ENGINEERING (SE)
Both SE & HF are vested in system success.

Focus of SE: Integration of ALL systems to insure:

– System success
– Stakeholder satisfaction

Focus of HF: Integration of the needs of the human into

ALL systems to insure:
– Optimal performance
– SAFETY
We are surrounded by many everyday things that have
poor usability.

Why is usability important?

qA measure of the effectiveness, efficiency and
satisfaction with which specified users can
achieve specified goals in a particular
environment.
 Anger &
Frustration
Decreased
Costs productivity
money in
workplace

POOR
USABILITY
Loss of RESULTS IN Higher error
customer
rates
loyalty

Physical &
Equipment
emotional
damage
injury
Make things visible
qThe correct parts must be visible and they must
convey the correct message.
qNatural signals are naturally interpreted.
qVisibility problems occur when clues are lacking or
exist in excess.
qJust by looking, the user should know the state of
the system and possible actions.
qDon’t violate these principles to make something
“look good”
 Provide a good conceptual model

A good conceptual model allows us to predict

the effects of our actions.

Without a good model, we operate blindly

qSimply follow rules without understanding a reason
qNo understanding of cause or effect
qNo recourse when something breaks
 Norman’s Principle in Software

Affordance Mapping Constraints Feedback Visibility

Individual as an Information Processor

Arrow Flow of information through the system

Labeled Function elements in the processing

. boxes chain

Inputs Various sources of information

Outputs Actions/behaviors
qDesign cognitive human factors is concerned with
mental processes, such as perception, memory,
reasoning and motor response, as they affect
interactions among humans and other elements of a
system.

qThese include mental workload, decision-making,

skilled performance, human-computer interaction
(HIC), human reliability, work stress and training as
they may relate to human system design, where to
optimize human well-being and system performance.
Physical human factors is concerned with human
anatomy, and some of the anthropometric,
physiological and bio-mechanical characteristics as they
relate to physical activity.

Human perceptual, cognitive and performance

characteristics:
qSensory processes in vision, hearing and other
senses
qSpatial awareness and perceptual organization
qAttention, cognition, decision-making and
problem solving
qAttention, workload and situational awareness
qLearning and memory
qPerformance, speed, accuracy and reliability
qStress, fatigue and other psychological and
physiological states
qIndividual differences
Example: An operator’s reaction to a visual alarm
(visual stimulation)
qOrganizational human factors is concerned with the
optimization of socio-technical systems, including
their organizational structures, policies, and
processes including communication, management,
work design, work systems, time, teamwork and
quality management.

qEnvironmental human factors is concerned with

human interaction with the environment. The
physical environment is characterized by climate,
temperature, pressure vibration, light.
qHIC involves the study, planning, design and
computers. HIC is also sometimes referred to as
man-machine interaction (MMI) or computer-human
interaction (CHI).

qAttention to human-machine interaction is important

because poorly designed human machine interfaces
can lead to many unexpected problems for example
Three Mile Islands accident, a nuclear meltdown
accident.
HCI differs from human
factors in that there is less of
a focus on repetitive work-
oriented tasks and procedures,
and much less emphasis on
physical stress and the
physical form or industrial
design of user interface, such
as keyboards and mouse devices.
Display designs are human
made artifacts designed to
support the perception of
relevant system variables
and to facilitate further
processing of that information.
A user must be able to process
whatever information that a
system generates and displays
according to principles
manner that will support
perception, situation
awareness and understanding.
 COGNITIVE PROCESSES

q Cognitive processes include perception, recognition,

imagining, remembering, thinking, judging, reasoning,
problem solving, conceptualizing, planning and more terms
and applications. These cognitive processes can emerge from
human language, thought, imagery and symbols.

q Out of all of these special cognitive processes, many cognitive

psychologists study language-acquisition, altered states of
mind and consciousness, visual perception, auditory
perception, short-term memory, long-term memory, storage,
retrieval, perception of thought and much more.
 Psychologists explore Psychologists employ
concepts such as empirical methods to infer
perception, cognition, causal and correlational
attention, emotion, relationships between
phenomenology, psychosocial variables. In
motivation, brain addition, or in opposition,
functioning, personality, to employing empirical and
behavior, and deductive methods, some –
interpersonal especially clinical and
relationships. counseling psychologists –
Psychologists of diverse at times rely upon symbolic
orientations also consider interpretation and other
the unconscious mind. inductive techniques.
qPsychology has been described as “hub science”,
with psychological findings linking to research and
perspectives from the social sciences, natural
sciences, medicine, and the humanities, such as
philosophy.
q While psychological knowledge is often applied to the
assessment and treatment of health problems, it is also
directed towards understanding and solving problems in many
different spheres of human activity.

q The majority of psychologists are involved in some kind of

therapeutic role, practicing in clinical, counseling or school
settings. Many do scientific research on a wide range of topics
related to mental processes and behavior, and typically work
in university psychology departments of teach in other
academic settings (eg., medical schools, hospitals). Some are
employed in industrial and organizational settings, or in other
areas such as human development and aging, sport, health
and the media, as well as in forensic investigation and other
aspects of law.
For example: Industrial and
organizational psychology (I-O)
applies psychological concepts
and methods to optimize human
potential in the workplace.
Personnel psychology, a subfield
of I-O psychology, applies the
methods and principles of
psychology in selecting and
evaluating workers. I-O
psychology’s other subfield,
organizational psychology,
examines the effects of work
environments and management
styles on worker motivation, job
satifsfaction, and productivity.
 SENSORY MEMORY

q Sensory memory holds sensory information for a few

seconds or less after an item is perceived. The ability to look
at an item, and remember what it looked like with a second
of observation, or memorisation, is an example of sensory
memory. It is out of cognitive control and is an automatic
response. With very short presentations, participants often
report that they seem to “see” more than they can actually
report. The first experiments exploring this form of sensory
memory were conducted by George Sperling (1963) using
the “partial report paradigm”.

q Information received by human information processing

system through sense organs, but with limits and defects.
 There are three types of sensory memories
• A fast decaying store of visual information, a type of sensory
Iconic memory that briefly stores an image which has been perceived for a
Memory small duration.

• A fast decaying store of auditory information, another type of

Echoic sensory memory that briefly stores sounds which has been
Memory perceived for a small duration.

• A type of sensory memory that represents a database for touch

Heptic stimuli.
Memory
 MEMORY
q In psychology, memory is the process in which
information is encoded, stored and retrieved. Encoding
allows information that is from the outside world to
reach our senses in the forms of chemical and physical
stimuli. In this first stage we must change the information
so that we may put the memory into the encoding
process.
q Storage is the second memory stage or process. This
entails that we maintain information over periods of
time. Finally the third process is the retrieval of
information that we have stored. We must locate it and
return it to our consciousness. Some retrieval attempts
may be effortless due to the type of information.
Overview of the forms and functions of memory in the
sciences
From an information perspective, there are three main
stages in the formation and retrieval of memory:
Retrieval recall
or recognition:
Storage:
Calling back
Encoding or A creation of the stored
Registration: a permanent information in
Receiving, record of the response to
processing encoded some cue for
and information. use in a
combining of process or
received activity.
information.

The loss of memory is described as forgetfulness, or as

medical disorder, amnesia.
 SHORT TERM MEMORY
q Short-term memory allows recall for a period of several seconds to
a minute without rehearsal. Its capacity is also very limited. George
A. Miller (1956), when working at Bell Laboratories, conducted
experiments showing that the store of short-term memory was 7+2
items (the title of his famous paper, “The magical number 7+2”).
q Modern estimates of the capacity of short-term memory are lower,
typically of the order of 4-5 items, however, memory capacity can
be increased through a process called chunking. For example, in
recalling a ten-digit telephone number, a person could chunk the
digits into three groups: first, the area code (such as 123), then a
three-digit chunk (456) and lastly a four-digit chunk (7890).
q This method of remembering telephone numbers is far more
effective than attempting to remember a string of 10 digits; this is
because we are able to chunk the information into meaningful
groups of numbers. This may be reflected in some countries in the
tendency to display telephone numbers as several chunks of two to
four numbers.
qShort- term memory is believed to rely mostly on
acoustic code for storing information, and to a lesser
extent a visual code. Conrad (1964) found that test
subjects had more difficulty recalling collections of
letters that were acoustically similar (EPD).
qConfusion with recalling acoustically similar letters
rather than visually similar letters implies that the
letters were encoded acoustically.
q Conrad’s (1964) study however, deals with the
encoding of written text, thus while memory of
written language may rely on acoustic components,
generalizations to all forms of memory cannot be
made.
 LONG TERM MEMORY
q The storage in sensory memory and short-term memory
generally have a strictly limited capacity and duration, which
means that information is not retained indefinitely. By
contrast, long-term memory can store much larger quantities
of information for potentially unlimited duration (sometimes
a whole lifespan).
q Its capacity is immeasurably large. For example, given a
random seven-digit number, we may remember it for only a
few seconds before forgetting, suggesting it was stored in our
short-term memory.
q On the other hand, we can remember telephone numbers for
many years through repetition; this information is said to be
stored in long-term memory.
q A stereotype is a thought that may be adopted about specific
types of individuals or certain ways of doing things, but that
belief may or may not accurately reflect reality. However, this
is only a fundamental psychological definition of a stereotype.
q Within and across different psychology disciplines, there are
different concepts and theories of stereotyping that provide
their own expanded definition. Some of these definitions
share commonalities, though each one may also harbor
unique aspects that may complement or contradict the
others.
q Stereotype content refers to the attributes that people think
characterize a group. A study of stereotype content examine
what people think of others rather than the reasons and
mechanisms involved in stereotyping.
qA stereotype is a commonly held expectation of what
people think is supposed to happen when they
recognize a signal or activate a control. Good design
should take advantage of these perception and
expectations.
Stereotype content model, adapted from Fiske et al. (2002): Four
types of stereotypes resulting from combinations of perceived
warmth and competence.
ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT FOR SOCIO-TECHNICAL
SYSTEM
Socio-technical systems (STS) in organizational development is
an approach to complex organizational work design that
recognizes the interaction between people and technology in
workplaces.

The term also refers to the interaction between society’s

complex infrastructures and human behavior. In this sense,
society itself, and most of its substructures, are complex socio-
technical systems.

Socio-technical systems pertain to theory regarding social

aspects of people and society and technical aspects of
organizational structure and processes. Here, technical does
not necessarily imply material technology.
“Technical” is a term used to refer to structure and a broader
sense of technicalities. Socio-technical refers to the
interrelatedness of social and technical aspects of an
organization or the society as a whole.

Socio-technical theory therefore is about joint optimization,

with a shared emphasis on achievement of both excellence in
technical performance and quality in people’s work lives.

Socio-technical theory, as distinct from socio-technical

systems, proposes a number of different ways of achieving
joint optimisation. They are usually based on designing
different kinds of organisation, ones in which the relationships
between socio and technical elements lead to the emergence
of productivity and wellbeing.
 HUMAN FACTORS ISSUE IMPLICATION
• All safe systems of work should take into account the
limitations of people and build in safeguards should
those limitations be exceeded.
• Human capabilities and fallibilities could affect task
performance, physical limitations of size and reach,
individual skills and social and group factors.
• System designers should take into account of all aspects
of human factors in designing and developing safe and
reliable systems.
• Managers and advisers should select, train and monitor
individuals to encourage and sustain safe performance
and individuals should take some responsibility for their
own safety.
 GROUP DISCUSSION

Identify the human factor in system design from major

process incidents (apply to all important key points as
per in slides):

vThree Miles Island

vMilford Haven, Texas City
vApollo 13
vAlpha Piper
Terima Kasih | Thank You