Human Factor: Basic Design and Evaluation Methods Flashcards
What design phase are human factors methods applied to?
Human factors methods and principles are
applied in virtually all product design phases
What are the three design phases that human factors can be applied to?
1) pre-design analysis
2) conceptual and technical design
3) final test and evaluation.
Why should a cost/analysis benefit analysis be performed?
It will demonstrate the overall advantages of the efforts.
Is estimating the cost for human factors effort easy? If so, how is it calculated?
Estimating the costs for a human factors effort is relatively easy because the designer tends to be familiar with the costs for personnel and materials. The costs are measured in time and money.
Are estimating benefits easier or more difficult than estimating cost of human factors in design?
Estimating the benefits tends to be more difficult and must be based on assumptions.
What are some benefits of human factors?
a) Increased sales
b) Decreased compensation and litigation costs
c) Decreased cost of providing training
d) Decreased customer support costs
e) Decreased development costs
f) Decreased maintenance costs
g) Increased user productivity
h) Decreased user errors
i) Improved quality of service
j) Decreased training time
k) Decreased user turnover.
What are some of the health or safety related benefits of human factors in design?
a) Decreased sick leave or time off
b) Decreased number of accidents or acute injuries
c) Decreased number of chronic injuries (trauma disorders)
d) Decreased medical and rehabilitation expenses
e) Decreased number of citations or fines
f) Decreased number of lawsuits
g) Increased employee satisfaction (low turnover)
h) Augmented Survivability/ Decreased Mortality rate
To get the most benefit from Human Factors, at which stage in the design process should it be included?
In order to maximally benefit the final product, human factors must be involved as early as possible in the product (or system) design rather than being performed as a final evaluation after product design.
What are the 8 design stages?
1) Front-end analysis
2) Conceptual Design
3) Iterative Design and testing
4) Design and support materials
5) System production
6) Implementation and evaluation
7) System operation and maintenance
8) System disposal
Describe of of the analysis that goes into the front-end analysis stage.
It is focused on user analysis, functional analysis (what are the capabilities of the system; preliminary task analysis; which are accessible to the human); environmental analysis; identifying end user preferences and requirements; providing input for system specs.;
Why is front-end analysis important?
Makes sure objectives and functions match user requirements, provide ergonomic criteria
What is involved in the conceptual design stage?
Focuses on functional allocation: what should the system do, what should the human do? It also
What are the five components of the iterative design and testing stage?
1) task analysis
2) interface design
3) development prototypes
4) Heuristic evaluation (design review)
5) Additional evaluation (design review)
What is the goal of the design and support materials stage?
To develop or provide input for support materials such as manuals.
What is the goal of the implementation and evaluation stage?
To evaluate the field design.
