Design Goals

1
Design Goals

• Error and Systems Design
• Objectives of Human Factors
• Bad design examples

2
Error and Systems Design

• Types of Error
• Importance of Systems Design
• Multiple Contributing Causes
• Latent Errors (often depend on point of view)
• Designing for safety and reliability
• Our Focus
• Human factors design
• Systems design
• Human capability and limitations

3
Objectives of Human Factors

• Basic operational objectives
• Overall System Objectives
• Objectives affecting users and operators
• Other Objectives

4
Basic operational objectives

• Reduce errors
• Increase safety
• Improve system performance

5
Overall System Objectives

• Increase reliability
• Improve maintainability
• Reduce personnel requirements
• Reduce training requirements

6
Objectives affecting users and operators

• Improve the working environment
• Reduce fatigue and physical stress
• Increase human comfort
• Reduce boredom and monotony
• Increase ease of use
• Increase user acceptance

7
Other objectives

• Reduce loss of time and equipment
• Increase economy of production

8
Good Designs...

• guard against misuse, unintended uses, and abuses
  
• cater for people of all sizes, shapes, attitudes
  and personalities

9
Spot problems by looking for operations that...

• are hard to understand
• are overly complex
• require precise sequencing and timing
• have controls with poor affordances (it's not
  clear what they do)
• are not associated with good feedback (i.e., you
  don't know what the consequences are)

10
Bad Design Examples

• Demonstrate the need for Human Factors
  Engineering
• Highlight user-centred design principles (as
  negative examples)
• Demonstrate that good design is difficult

11
Which side to push on?
12
Pull means Push
13
Hard to Plug in
14
Bad use of Space
15
Find the Button
16
Dexterity is a Plus
17
Challenge/Exercise

• Think of three systems that people use or
  activities that people engage in
• where human factors design is irrelevant and
• only knowledge of mechanical design and good
  engineering practice is required.
• Be prepared to discuss and defend these examples
  in the second lecture