Ergonomics (or human factors) is the application of scientific information concerning humans to the design of objects, systems and environment for human use. (definition adopted by the International Ergonomics Association in 2007). It's the study of man and machine and its effects on humans.

Overview

Ergonomists contribute to the design and evaluation of tasks, jobs, products, environments and systems in order to make them compatible with the needs, abilities and limitations of people (IEA, 2000). Ergonomics comes into everything which involves people. Work systems, sports and leisure, health and safety should all embody ergonomics principles if well designed.(International Ergonomics Association in 2007)

Domains

The IEA divides ergonomics broadly into three domains:

Physical ergonomics deals with the human body's responses to physical and physiological stresses. Relevant topics include manual materials handling, workstation layout, job demands, and risk factors such as repetition, vibration, force and awkward/static posture as they relate to musculoskeletal disorders (see repetitive strain injury).

Cognitive ergonomics, also known as engineering psychology, concerns mental processes such as perception, attention, cognition, motor control, and memory storage and retrieval as they affect interactions among humans and other elements of a system. Relevant topics include mental workload, vigilance, decision making, skilled performance, human error, human-computer interaction, and training.

Organizational ergonomics, or macroergonomics, is concerned with the optimization of sociotechnical systems, including their organizational structures, policies, and processes. Relevant topics include shift work, scheduling, job satisfaction, motivational theory, supervision, teamwork, telework and ethics.

History

The term ergonomics (from the Greek words ergon [work] and nomos [natural laws]) first entered the modern lexicon when Wojciech Jastrzębowski used the word in his 1857 article Rys ergonomji czyli nauki o pracy, opartej na prawdach poczerpniętych z Nauki Przyrody (adapted from a previous version of this page).

Later in the 19th century, Frederick Winslow Taylor pioneered the "Scientific Management" method, which proposed a way to find the optimum method for carrying out a given task. Taylor found that he could, for example, triple the amount of coal that workers were shovelling by incrementally reducing the size and weight of coal shovels until the fastest shovelling rate was reached. Frank and Lilian Gilbreth expanded Taylor's methods in the early 1900s to develop "Time and Motion Studies". They aimed to improve efficiency by eliminating unnecessary steps and actions. By applying this approach, the Gilbreths reduced the number of motions in bricklaying from 18 to 4.5, allowing bricklayers to increase their productivity from 120 to 350 bricks per hour.

World War II marked the development of new and complex machines and weaponry, and these made new demands on operators' cognition. The decision-making, attention, situational awareness and hand-eye coordination of the machine's operator became key in the success or failure of a task. It was observed that fully functional aircraft, flown by the best-trained pilots, still crashed. In 1943, Alphonse Chapanis, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, showed that this so-called "pilot error" could be greatly reduced when more logical and differentiable controls replaced confusing designs in airplane cockpits.

In the decades since the war, ergonomics has continued to flourish and diversify. The Space Age created new human factors issues such as weightlessness and extreme G-forces. How far could environments in space be tolerated, and what effects would they have on the mind and body? The dawn of the Information Age has resulted in the new ergonomics field of human-computer interaction (HCI). Likewise, the growing demand for and competition among consumer goods and electronics has resulted in more companies including human factors in product design.

Foundations

Ergonomics draws on many disciplines in its study of humans and their environments, including anthropometry, biomechanics, engineering, kinesiology, physiology and psychology.

Typically, an ergonomist will have a BA or BS in Psychology, Industrial/Mechanical Engineering or Health Sciences, and usually a MA, MS or PhD in a related discipline. Many universities offer Master of Science degrees in Ergonomics, while some offer Master of Ergonomics or Master of Human Factors degrees.

More recently, occupational therapists have been moving into the field of ergonomics and the field has been heralded as one of the top ten emerging practice areas to watch for in the new millennium in occupational therapy.

Applications

The more than twenty technical subgroups within the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, HFES, indicate the range of applications for ergonomics. Human factors engineering continues to be successfully applied in the fields of aerospace, aging, health care, IT, product design, transportation, training, nuclear and virtual environments, among others. Kim Vicente, a University of Toronto Professor of Ergonomics, argues that the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl is attributable to plant designers not paying enough attention to human factors. "The operators were trained but the complexity of the reactor and the control panels nevertheless outstripped their ability to grasp what they were seeing [during the prelude to the disaster]."