Psychological factors

Question 1

Psychological ergonomics

Answer 1

applies information and ability about human behaviour to the design and evaluation of products to enhance comfortable use

Question 2

Why do we need to consider the psychological aspect of design?

Answer 2

> people are psychologically complex

> design touches every part of human experience

> there are factors pertaining to ur product/environment that cannot be seen like taste, smell, touch, humidity, temperature

Question 3

Factors

Answer 3

> temperature

> humidity

> sound

> light

> texture

> colour

> smell

> perception of space (for work)

Question 4

Methods of collecting psychological factor data

Answer 4

Data collection through 4 types of measurement data scales: (ranking order)

• Nominal —> category (qualitative data)
• Ordinal —> order (qualitative data)
• Interval —> equal difference (quantitative data)
• Ratio —> absolute/true zero (quantitative data) —> cannot have a negative value

Question 5

Effect of environmental factors on worker performance: Noise levels

Answer 5

> loud noises (above 85 decibels) may affect the performance of employees and cause fatigue and stress,

> less than 50 decibels is required for tasks that required high levels of concentration and focus

> creative tasks are found to be best done with slight or moderate noise level of between 50 to 70 decibels

> quiet spaces in work spaces to allow individuals to use when doing focused work was found to improve performance on tasks needing high concentration

> building acoustics is an important consideration in office design to control transmission of sound

Question 6

sound reduction

Answer 6

stop outside noise from entering a building or space

Question 7

sound absorption

Answer 7

stops noise made inside the office from reverberating around a space

Question 8

Anechoic

Answer 8

no echo, no sound reverberation

Question 9

Effect of environmental factors on worker performance: Lighting

Answer 9

• Bright light produced significantly better performance compared to dim light in night conditions
• At daytime, little difference was found between dim and bright light when it came to worker performance
• Provision of natural lighting and views to the outside also has positive psychological impact on worker performance

Question 10

Effect of environmental factors on worker performance: Temperature

Answer 10

• Thermal comfort in office spaces in an important psychological factors to boost productivity and morale
• High temperatures lead to heat stress and exhaustion and also drowsiness
• Cooler directed over the face has been seen to increase alertness
• The right temp is often hard to achieve. Organisers imply the rule of 80 percent satisfaction for thermal comfort as a benchmark
• Too high a worker density may also increase the room temperature due to body heat

Question 11

Effect of workspace design (perception of space)

Answer 11

• personal/defensible space (cubicles)
• open space
• flexible workspaces (space to move, lots of diff types of things)

Question 12

Human information processing systems

Answer 12

• Human information processing system can be represented using a flow chart
  1. Input-event happens
  2. Sensory processes-organ sense what happens
  3. Central processes-brain decides action
  4. Motor processes-movement occurs to take action
  5. Output-event is avoided or taken action upon

Question 13

Reasons for breakdown in human information processing system

Answer 13

• Brain is not aware or not trained of suitable responses to a stimuli
• When an overload or conflicting information is present
• Cognitive impairments
• Lack of fine motor skills affect motor processes
• High level of stress can also impair proper judgement