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Ergonomics > Midterm 1: Chapter 1 > Flashcards

Midterm 1: Chapter 1 Flashcards

1
Q

What is Ergonomics?

A

Derived from the Greek words ergon (work) and nomos (natural laws)

  • The study of designing equipment and devices that fit the human body, its movements, and its cognitive abilities.
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2
Q

What is Human Factors?

A

The science of understanding the properties of human capability and applying this understanding to the design, development, and deployment of systems and services.

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3
Q

What is a human factor?

A

is a physical or cognitive property of an individual that influences functioning of technological systems as well as human-environment equilibriums

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4
Q

What is the goal of Ergonomics?

A

to use knowledge about human cognitive, physical, and social characteristics to design machines, tools, and systems that are easy and safe to use

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5
Q

Why is this important?

A

Daily occurrences such as accidents at work, in traffic, and at home, as well as disasters involving cranes, airplanes, and nuclear power stations can often be attributed to human error

-Analysis of these failure shows the cause is often a poor and misunderstood relationship between operators and their task

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6
Q

What is Economics Ergonomics?

A

By preventing health problems such as work-related musculoskeletal disorders, ergonomists not only improve well-being but reduce costs to companies and individuals

  • Can also improve quality of products
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7
Q

What does successful human factors and ergonomics offer?

A
  • enhances performance (reduce error, increase productivity)
  • increases safety
  • improves user satisfaction
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8
Q

Difficulty

A

systems should be designed in a way that they are suited to every user

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9
Q

mental model

A

“People do not interact with a system, they interact with their mental model of that system” - Doug Gillan

  • If the system (simple or complex) does not work the way a person thinks it should work then the person will be unsuccessful when attempting to use the system.
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10
Q

Affordances

A

-describe the idea that certain things look as if you’re supposed to use them in a certain way

Quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action

  • James J. Gibson coined the term in 1977 to describe the idea that certain things look as if you’re supposed to use them in a certain way
    • Troublesome because it can be different for each individual
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11
Q

What are the foundations of science?

A
  • based on empiricism (Knowledge by observation)
  • Self-correcting (continually test scientific statements with observations, revise scientific statements)
  • Systematically apply the scientific method
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12
Q

What is the scientific method?

A

logical approach to obtaining answers to questions
-often equated with hypothesis generating and testing

1) . observe phenomenon
2) State problem
3) . develop Hypothesis
4) conduct experiment -> Disseminate information
5) evaluate hypothesis

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13
Q

What are the goals of science?

A

description, prediction, explanation/understanding

  • This is achieved by collecting data (gathering facts) to build a theory
  • The theory provides the best explantation for the findings in the research
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14
Q

What are variables?

A

They are anything that can vary or differ

- can be an event, situation, behavior, or individual characteristic

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15
Q

What is the operationally definition of variable?

A
  • a definition of the variable in terms of the operations or techniques the researcher uses in order to measure or manipulate it
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16
Q

Why define a variable this way?

A

to describe abstract concepts in concrete terms

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17
Q

What is an independent variable?

A

The variables that are manipulated or chosen by the researcher

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18
Q

What is a dependent variable?

A

the variables that are measured by the researcher (in other words, the variables you want to know). They ‘depend’ on the independent variable because you set up your experiment with the prediction that the dependent variable(s) will change based on the independent variable(s)

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19
Q

What is a subject?

A

a human characteristics aka individual differences

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20
Q

What is reliability?

A

How consistent is the measurements

the consistency of measurements
-for example, if you give a test to the same people at two different times, the test is said to have high “test-retest” reliability if the scores for each person are similar of the two administrations of the test.

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21
Q

What is validity?

A

the degree to which an experiment, a procedure, or a measurement represents what is supposed to represent
= are we measuring what we think we are measuring

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22
Q

What is construct validity?

A

does the measure that is employed actually measure the construct it is intended to measure?

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23
Q

What is internal validity?

A

can the relations observed can be attributed with a high degree of confidence to the variables of interest? i.e., the ability to draw conclusions about causal relationships from our data

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24
Q

What is external validity?

A

can the results or the principles derived from the results can be generalized to a variety of other settings?

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25
Q

What is ecological validity?

A

do the behaviors observed in the study reflect the behaviors that actually occur in a natural setting?

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26
Q

What are the types of research methods?

A

descriptive, correlational and differential, experimental

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27
Q

When do you use descriptive research?

A

when you want to examine a situation that cannot be replicated

  • you are unable to exercise any control over the events under the investigation
  • control can lead to a loss of ecological and external validity
28
Q

What are Archival Data?

A

is data obtained from preexisting data collections, like the census

29
Q

What are naturalistic observations and ethnographic methods?

A
  • great ecological validity

- used to characterize how people interact with a system in the ‘real world’

30
Q

What are the measurement issues for observations?

A
  • observations can be recored at the time they are made or later
  • content and amount of detail in observations vary
  • length of time during which observations are made can be short or long
  • observations can vary in terms of the amount of inference or degree of interpretation, that is required to classify events into measurement categories
31
Q

The best way to begin addressing a problem

A

Surveys and questionnaires.
- you ask people questions in natural environment

  • Steps to a good survey/questionnaire
    1. Decide on the information you want the questionnaire to provide
    2. Decide what type of questionnaire should be used
    3. If you decide to write your own questionnaire, the third step is to write a first draft
    4. Revise questionnaire
    5. Pretest the questionnaire
    6. Finalize the questionnaire
32
Q

What are interviews and focus groups?

A
  • Structured and unstructured interviews with users at any phase of the research process and for a variety of purposes
  • do not work well for discovering specific usability problems in a system
33
Q

What is correlational research?

A

measure the strength of a relationship between two or more variables

34
Q

What is differential research?

A

observe two or more groups that are differentiated on the basis of some preexisting variable

35
Q

Due to restricted nature of laboratory experiments well-designed experiments have what two types of validity and are they low or high?

A

They have high internal validity and low ecological validity

36
Q

What is Between subjects experimental design?

A

Two or more groups of people are tested and each group received only one of the treatment conditions of the independent variable.

  • typically random assignment
  • matched designs are better
37
Q

What is within subjects?

A

use the same participants in each condition

  • increases sensitivity of the design (more likely to find significant effects)
  • reduces the number of participants needed
38
Q

What are the major drawbacks for within subjects?

A

carryover effect: previously received treatment conditions influence a subject’s performance on subsequent conditions
- practice/fatigue effects: increase/decrease in performance due to experience

39
Q

What is carryover effect?

A

previously received treatment conditions influence a subject’s performance on subsequent conditions

40
Q

What is practice/fatigue effects?

A

increase/decrease in performance due to experience

41
Q

Use experimental design whenever possible because

A

it optimizes internal validity, with the right setting, can be excellent external validity

42
Q

Use descriptive methods because?

A

it can provide info about real-world systems that cannot be obtained from controlled experiments.
- good for obtaining quick info about user characteristics and usability

43
Q

What is learnability?

A

how easy is it to learn

44
Q

What is efficiency?

A

how quickly and accurately can you do it?

45
Q

What is memorability?

A

how easy is it to remember?

46
Q

What is low error rate?

A

reduce the number of possible errors

47
Q

What is satisfaction?

A

increase the user’s satisfaction with the system

48
Q

Who is Don Norman?

A

Author of “The Psychology of Everyday Things”

- Defined 7 principles for transforming difficult tasks into simple ones:

49
Q

Knowledge in the world

A

sources of information outside of the individual

ex. maps, signposts, labels, recipes, speedometer in a car

50
Q

Knowledge in the head

A

information from the world that has been internalized.

- ex: affordances

51
Q

Simplify the structure of tasks

A

provide simple mental aids -

ex) warning labels
- manage visible information
ex) provide speedometers to drivers
- change the nature of the task -
ex) cashiers scan barcodes instead of typing in numbers
- making a task too simple can cause the user to lose some control of the system
- ex) preprogrammed radio buttons inhibit finding new stations

52
Q

Feedback

A
  • when a user interacts with a system, the system should provide information that the interaction was successful or an error was made
53
Q

Gulf of execution

A

the gap between the user’s goal of action and means to execute that goal

54
Q

Gulf of evaluation

A

The degree to which the system provides representations that can be directly perceived and interpreted in terms of the expectations and intentions of the user
- bridge these gulfs

55
Q

Response compatibility

A

movement of control should match outcome goal. ex: when you turn the steering wheel left, the car should turn left

56
Q

Constraints

A

can be used to prevent error

  • affordance (only one option)
  • forcing function (square can only fit on the square toys)
57
Q

Design for Error

A

people will make errors

  • make it easy to recover from them
  • design around them when possible
58
Q

Standardize

A
  • when you can’t exploit the previous principles … make everything the same.
  • creates knowledge in the head (driving on the right side of the road)
  • without conforming to standards, you can confuse people which causes errors (walking on the left side of a two-way door)
59
Q

When difficulty is Good

A

Sometimes we want things to be difficult
- ex> fences block dangerous areas
-ex> child-proofing medications
=use the same principles - only opposite

60
Q

What is users analysis?

A 
Who are your users? 
Characteristics of users
  -include all types of current users
  -anticipate for potential users 
Develop personas
  - hypothetical persona derived from real user statistics
61
Q

What is function Analysis?

A

What functions should be performed by the system? - functions represent a general goal, not the actual tasks
- ex: Function: record a TV show
Tasks: turn on the TV and cable box, select the channel to record, select the time period to record, set recording settings.

62
Q

Task Analysis?

A

What are the specific activities performed by the human when interacting with the system?
Should include:
-functions of system
-more specific tasks to be performed
-concurrent activities
Complexity will vary

63
Q

Environment Analysis

A

Where will the tasks be completed and under what conditions?

64
Q

User Preferences & Requirements

A

When different design options are available, you should determine the preferences and requirements of the intended users to guide design

-Methods of collecting user preferences may include focus groups, questionnaires, etc

65
Q

Heuristic Evaluation

A

Judge the compliance with HFE principles

  • Should be done by several people to compare results
  • Not very scientific
  • Good to get started
66
Q

Usability Testing

A

Have users interact with a system to identify flaws

Typically a functional product
Conducted by:
Giving the user a scenario and a task to complete
Videotape
Think aloud protocol
Answer questions
Debrief/ questionnaire

Data Collected:
Time to complete task
Errors
Comments

Ergonomics (1 decks)

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