title: Developing human factors/ergonomics as a design discipline.
abstract: This paper deals with internal challenges that the human factors/ergonomics (HFE) research faces when wishing to strengthen its contribution to development of work systems. Three established characteristics of high-quality HFE, i.e., HFE takes a systems approach, HFE is design-driven, and HFE focuses on two closely related outcomes, performance and well-being, are taken as a starting point of a methodological discussion, in which conceptual innovations, e.g. adopting the technology-in-use perspective, are proposed to support development of HFE towards the high-quality aims. The feasibility of the proposed conceptual choices is demonstrated by introducing a naturalistic HFE analysis approach including four HFE functions. The gained experience of the use of this approach in a number of complex work domains allows the conclusion that becoming design-driven appears as that most difficult quality target for HFE to reach. Creating an own design discipline identity in a multi-voiced collaboration is the key internal challenge for human factors/ergonomics.
authors.affiliation: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, P.O. Box 1000, 02044 VTT, Finland. Electronic address: Leena.Norros@vtt.fi.
authors.forename: Leena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Norros
mesh_terms: D000059:Accidents; D006804:Ergonomics; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D055848:Nuclear Power Plants; D012767:Ships; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013672:Technology; D013685:Telecommunications
keywords: Core-task modelling; Design thinking; Naturalistic approach; Technology-in-use