Goals of Human Factors Engineering
Safety: Reducing the risk of injury and death
Performance: Increasing productivity, quality, and efficiency
Satisfaction: Increasing acceptance, comfort, and well-being
Process of Human Factors Engineering (Human Centered Design)
Iterative on three major phases: understand users, create a prototype, and evaluate the prototype.
This has to be done from the early stage of the design. Because even when designers attempt to consider human factors, they often complete the product design first and only then hand off the blueprint or prototype to a human factors expert to evaluate.
Observe
Task Analysis
Task analysis is a broad term that encompasses many other techniques such as use cases, user stories, and user journeys. All of these techniques focus on understanding
Why - users’ goals and motivations
What - the tasks and subtasks to achieve these goals
When - the ordering and timing of these tasks
Where - and the location and situation
Create
Evaluate
Heuristic Evaluation
Heuristic Evaluation is done internally, with 3 individuals inspect the design and identify if there is anything violating design principles, safety requirement, etc.
Then you can do cognitive walkthrough as well:
Is it likely that the person will perform the right action?
Does the person understand what task needs to be performed?
Will the person notice that the next task can be performed?
Will the person under stand how to perform the task?
Does the person get feedback after performing the task indicating successful completion?
Usability Test
5 usability dimensions
Learnability
Efficiency
Memorability
Less Errors
Satisfaction