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At the end of this chapter you will be able to...

1. identify appropriate design process for high-risk systems, the work place, and consumer products

2. apply human-centered design using the understand, create, and evaluate iterative cycle

3. identify the role of human factors in system design processes

4. identify design opportunities using focus groups, observations, and accident investigation

5. define design requirements using task analysis 6. create prototypes using iterative design and refinement

Thomas Edison was a great inventor but a poor businessman. Consider the phonograph. Edison invented it, he had better technology than his competitors, but he built a technology-centered device that failed to consider his customers’ needs, and his phonograph business failed. One of Edison’s failings was to neglect the practical advantages of the disc over the cylinder in terms of ease of use, storage, and shipping. Edison scoffed at the scratchy sound of the disc compared to the superior sound of his cylinders. Edison thought phonographs could lead to a paperless office in which dictated letters could be recorded and the cylinders mailed without the need for transcription. The real use of the phonograph, discovered by a variety of other manufacturers, was for prerecorded music. Once again, he failed to understand the real desires of his customers. Edison decided that big-name, expensive artists did not sound that different from the lesser-known professionals. He is probably correct. Edison thought he could save considerable money at no sacrifice to quality by recording those lesser-known artists. He was right; he saved a lot of money. The problem was, the public wanted to hear the well-known artists, not the unknown ones. Edison bet on a technology-centered analysis and lost. The moral of this story is to know your customer. Being first, being best, and even being right do not matter; what matters is understanding what your customers want and need. Many technology-oriented companies are in a similar muddle. They develop technology-driven products without understanding their customers (Adapted from Norman [23]). The goal of a human factors specialist is to make systems successful by enhancing safety, performance, and satisfaction. This is achieved by applying human factors principles, methods, and data to the design of products or systems. The concept of “design” is very broad and can include activities such as: • Creating new products, systems, and experiences • Improving existing products to address human factors problems • Ensuring safety in the workplace, car, and home • Implementing safety-related activities, such as hazard analyses, industrial safety programs, and safety-related training • Developing performance support materials, such as checklists and instruction manuals • Developing methods to train and assess groups and teams • Guiding team and organizational design In this chapter, we review some of the methods that human factors specialists use to support design, with particular emphasis on the early stages of design. Human factors methods and principles are applied in all product design phases: front-end analysis, prototyping, technical design, and final test and evaluation.

Although interface design may be the most visible design element, human factors specialists go beyond interface to design the tasks, interaction, overall experience, and even the organization of people and technology. Cooper [28] argues that focusing solely on interface design is ineffective and calls it “painting the corpse.” Making a pretty, 3-D graphical interface cannot save a system that does not consider the job or organization it supports. Reflecting this need to go beyond user interface (UI), is the increasing prominence of user experience (UX) design, which extends beyond the interface to include all aspects of users’ interaction with a system [29]. This chapter provides an overview of the process needed to address these broad considerations, and later chapters provide the basic content necessary to carry out those processes. Later chapters also provide specialized processes needed to address considerations beyond user experience design, such as organizational design.