How Important Are Human Factors And Ergonomics?

Human factors and ergonomics has become more significant in society over the last sixty years with the rise of technology. Human factors and ergonomics can be defined by the International Ergonomics Association as Ergonomics the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance (Salvendy, G. 2012). Human factors and ergonomics helps contribute to the design of tasks, jobs, and products including technology to help make them more compatible with the needs and abilities of people. Human factors and ergonomics includes many different areas of psychology for example applied psychology, clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, and developmental psychology. It is important to learn the history of …show more content…
Flight research began at the University of Maryland, where the focus was on psychophysiological "tension" as a determinant of performance in flight training (Roscoe, 1997). This experiment involved the first airborne polygraph and was the first in which pilot performance was measured and correlated with physiological responses in flight (Roscoe, 1997). A year later, a man named John Flanagan was recruited to set up an aviation psychology program for the U.S. Army. This organization was named the Applied Psychology Panel of the National Defense Research Committee, and it was expanded a considerable amount with America’s entry into the war. Its work extended into the U.S. Army Air Forces Aviation Psychology Program with one of the first projects studying Army anti-aircraft artillery at Tufts College. This study later led to the development of a gun-director tracking simulator (Roscoe,