...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Machine guarding is an important human factors aspect of human machine interaction and design. Manufacturers must provide effective guards to separate operators, in time or distance, from a potential hazards while using machines. Adjustable guards often provide reasonble safe and efficient operation. Machine guards are often modified or removed by the workers for convenience or optimized workflow at the cost of safety, which exposes workers...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Human Systems Integration (HSI) is a robust process by which practitioners design and develop systems that effectively integrate human capabilities and limitations. HSI is a multidisciplinary field of study composed of several basic areas: Human Factors Engineering, System Safety, Health Hazards, Personnel Survivability, Manpower,Personnel,Training,Habitability. HSI includes humans, in their different roles in the system such as acting as an...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Subjects-in-tandem, also known as "Co-Discovery" is a methodology employed where two subjects are asked to work concurrently on a series of tasks while vocalizing their analytical observations. Using this technique, participants can feed off of each other's comments to generate a richer set of observations than is normally possible with the participants interacting separately. Another benefit to this methodology is that having two people work...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Did you know that the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society has 24 technical groups that are concerned with the human factors aspects of specific application areas? One of those is the Children's Issues Technical Group The Children's Issues Technical Group (CITG) consists of individuals interested in research, design, and applications concerning human factors and ergonomics (HFE) issues related to the children’s emerging development from birth to...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Slips, trips, and falls are the most common premise liability cases that benefit from human factors testimony. Property owners must maintain safe premises. The question often remains: "Was the trip hazard open and obvious?" Several human factors principles relate to the ability of a pedestrian to detect and identify a trip hazard, including lighting, conspicuity (an object's attention-grabbing characteristics), foreseeable travel path, the size...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! The driving environment requires the successful performance of a highly complex series of interconnected tasks, including navigating, speed regulation, observing posted signs and signals, and responding to unpredictable events in a safe and timely manner. Through experience, the cognitive processing demands of driving is greatly reduced, leading many to become complacent or distracted by secondary tasks. Motor vehicle collions occur when...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analysis can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting measurements that are expected to have some degree of error. The aim is to use approaches from statistics to derive a pooled estimate closest to the unknown common truth based on how this error is...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Did you know that the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society has 24 technical groups that are concerned with the human factors aspects of specific application areas? One of those is the Aging technical group The Aging Technical Group (ATG) is a community of professionals from industry, academia, and government organizations who share a common interest in human factors appropriate to meeting the emerging needs of older people and special...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! What began as an informal group who met for lunch at HFES, HFE Woman became a group of women dedicated to celebrating diversity within the society, specifically by creating an informal setting where issues related to women can be discussed. As others expressed interest in joining, their size and the scope of their vision grew. HFE Woman organizes a variety of activities, such as Hosting workshops for professional development, Promoting...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Surveys and questionnaires are commonly used reserach techniques that are used across multiple disciplines including human factors. Surveys and questionnaires have an advantage in that they can be administered to a large group of people, using e-mail for example, at relatively low cost, enabling the researcher to gather a large amount of data in a short amount of time. The downside of these quick methods can be the validity of the data that's...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Ethnographic analysis, or the study of ethnography, is a branch of Human Factors that involves the direct study of people and cultures. The purpose of ethnographic analysis is to allow scientists to observe their subjects on the ground level, interacting with them as another person would instead of creating a scientist-subject relationship. Ethnographic research is designed to produce both descriptive, scientific observations and data that can...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Did you know that the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society has 24 technical groups that are concerned with the human factors aspects of specific application areas? One of those is the AEROSPACE SYSTEMS TECHNICAL GROUP. This Technical Group is concerned with the application of human factors to the development, design, certification, operation, and maintenance of human-machine systems in aviation and space environments. Practitioners working in the...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Biomechanics is the application of the principles of mechanics and physics to measure the forces exerted by and upon living forms. Occupational biomechanics is the application of these principles to the measurement of forces exerted by and upon the human body during the performance of work. These measurements are used to determine physical work performance tolerances with the goal of maximizing work performance while protecting worker...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Where the parameters of User Experience appear fairly cut and dry, the Customer Experience is more conceptual in nature, and is typically used as an all-encompassing term. The Customer Experience Professionals Association defines customer experience as: The sum of all the interactions that a customer has with a company over the course of the relationship lifecycle AND The customer's feelings, emotions, and perceptions of the brand over the course...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! The International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE) offers keynotes, workshops, and networking opportunities with professionals that span from the application of human factors in disease control to the impact of neuroergonomics in cognitive engineering. The AHFE conference objective is to provide an international forum for the dissemination and exchange of scientific information on theoretical, generic, and applied areas...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Did you know that the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society has 24 technical groups that are concerned with the human factors aspects of specific application areas? One of those is the Virtual Environments Technical Group. The Virtual Environments Technical Group (VETG) is concerned with human factors issues associated with human-virtual environment interaction. Their goal is to maximize human performance efficiency, ensure health and safety, and...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Iterative design is a design methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining a product or process. Based on the results of testing the most recent iteration of a design, changes and refinements are made. This process is intended to ultimately improve the quality and functionality of a design and may be applied throughout the new product development process. However, changes are easiest and less...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Focus groups are a type of qualitative research method that can be a powerful tool in system development, but they should not be the only source of information about user behavior. the proper role of focus groups is not to assess interaction styles or design usability, but to discover what users want from the system. These can be on a one-to-one interview basis, or in a group session. Can be used to gain a large quantity of deep qualitative...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! User analysis: User Analysis is a process that is focused on designing for the intended user or operator by establishing the characteristics that define them, detailing key features or attributes to be included in a desing, and creating a persona for the target user base. This analysis is best done at the outset of the design process to identify most common user types, and the characteristics that they would be assumed to have in common to help...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Did you know that the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society has 24 technical groups that are concerned with the human factors aspects of specific application areas? One of those is the Augmented Cognition Technical Group This Technical Group is concerned with fostering the development and application of real-time physiological and neurophysiological sensing technologies that can ascertain a human's cognitive state while interacting with...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! Critical incident technique (CIT) is a research method in which participants are asked to recall and describe a time when a behavior, action, or positive or negative occurrence impacted a specified outcome for example, the accomplishment of a given task. The technique was developed by Flanagan and fellow psychologists from the US Aviation Psychology Program during the World War 2, and later by the American Institute for Research and the University...

People who identify as LGBTQIAP+ have a higher risk of mental and physical health challenges as compared to the general population.  These include sexually transmitted diseases, substance use, cancers, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, bullying, isolation, rejection, anxiety, depression, and suicide. Health care providers may lack adequate training on the specific needs and challenges faced by sexual and gender minorities.  This can perpetuate prejudice and discrimination, resulting in poor...

Did you know that the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society furthers their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives through Affinity Groups that create opportunities for community, mentoring, and support based on areas of collective identity? These groups aim to challenge the Human Factors and Ergonomics industry while advancing science to combat long standing social disparities. One such group is The LGBTQ+ Affinity Group which serves members of the society that identify as as lesbian,...

HFC Pride content: https://www.humanfactorscast.media/blog/pride-2022/ In celebration of pride month, how can designers create LGBTQIAP+ inclusive interfaces, websites, and products? Inclusivity can create not just a welcoming environment for the community, but it can improve the experience for allies as well through setting a groundwork of acceptance of all identities. There is more to inclusivity than turning a company logo into a rainbow flag for the month of June. When creating a product...

...and now for another Human Factors Minute! In recent years, leaders and organizations within Human Factors, HCI, and UX have focused efforts on improving inclusivity throughout the fields. While these efforts have not gone unnoticed, the lack of diversity, specifically the inclusion of the LGBTQIA+ community, persists. In our research, we found a limited availability of resources for marginalized community members entering the field, as well as limited consideration of queer users in...