Announcements

May 5, 2010
I have fixed the equations link.

May 3, 2010
Welcome to Human Factors.  I hope we have a lot of fun exploring ways to apply psychology to engineering problems of all types.  

Background and Definition

Three-Mile Island! Many people do not know where this place is but they know very well what happened there - the largest nuclear accident in U.S. history. Something went wrong. Nearly very wrong. Why? Obviously some mechanical system failed, but the failure that occurred had been anticipated by the engineers that built the nuclear power plant and should not have been much of a concern. Sophisticated pieces of equipment are designed with the expectation that some time some part of the system will fail. The reason Three-Mile Island became serious was that the information the operators had about the failure was poor and they responded inappropriately. The United States was within about 2 minutes of a disaster of the scale of Chernobyl and yet it was completely unnecessary. Had the computer control room been adequately designed, taking into account human abilities and limitations, the disaster at Three-Mile Island would not even have rated a front page note in the local paper of the area. In this disaster we have one of the defining examples of the need for and importance of human factors.

A good, yet simple, definition of human factors is the design of equipment that people use intentionally taking into account how people operate. Since human beings have characteristic ways of perceiving, thinking, and feeling which cannot be easily modified, it makes sense to change machines to fit us rather than the other way around. Human factors is the scientific/engineering field that collects the relevant data for understanding how humans interact with machines, and uses that information towards the design and implementation of human-machine systems.

Objectives

The objectives of this course are two-fold: 1) to introduce the field of human factors and the fundamental concepts of the discipline, 2) to introduce the way in which human factors specialists think. To best accomplish these objectives the course is broken down into two parts. The first part of the class will provide the basics of human perceptual, cognitive, and motor abilities relevant to human factors. The second part of the course will consist the class working on projects to gain experience using human factors knowledge in actual applied settings. Thus, this course will move from the classroom to application of that knowledge in order to give you a taste of the work done by human factors professionals.

Readings and Course Schedule

Class Assignments

The class is broken down into two sections each of which will have separate sets of assignments. 

The First Section of the Course

The first section of the class will consist primarily of lecture/discussion on the background information of Human Factors. In addition, we will work several problems, usually in class, that require quantitative solutions.  You guessed it, we will do math.  This section will conclude with an examination. The examination will be worth 100 points and will be composed of items of many different types. The types of items will include multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, problems and essays.

The Second Section of the Course: The Project

Human factors professions play two types of roles relating to the design of equipment: 1) as actual members of a design team developing a new device or evaluating and existing device and 2) as a researcher collecting and analyzing data necessary to do (1) more effectively.  

In this section of the course, you will engage in both types of activities to help develop recommendations.  In this task

To help begin your research on these topics, here is a bibliography.  I am trying to put on reserve all those articles that are not in our library.

Project Teams will be determined later. 

Grading

The exam will be worth 150 points.  The in-class problems and homework are 50  points.  The task analysis is worth 50 points and the final paper is worth 150 points.  The final presentation is worth 50 points.

As can be seen, active class participation is vital to the success of this course. Therefore, participation will be worth 150 points, or 25% of your grade.  There are a total of 600 points.  Grades will be assigned on a 10% scale.