Engineering Psychology

Ergonomics and human factors seek to enhance the fit between individuals and their work environments by applying knowledge of human abilities and limitations to the design of operational processes, system interfaces, training, and performance aids. Developed along similar lines as industrial and organizational psychology, the career field owes much of its early success to applications in support of military efforts in World War II. Of these early success stories, one of the most notable involved redesigning pilot controls on military aircraft in response to a large number of pilots flying their airplanes into the ground. Despite extensive training, the pilots were not able to control their aircraft under stressful emergencies, primarily because system design was in contrast to pilot expectations of how things should work. A lack of standardization between different aircraft models was improved by modifying the handles of the landing gear control into the shape of a wheel and the handles of the aileron control to resemble a wing, and these changes eliminated “belly landings” almost overnight.

What may seem trivial 60 years after the fact is actually an exemplar for the profession. Real-world operational problems (i.e., belly landings) led to an investigation of work processes (i.e., analysis of pilot tasks during landing) that served to identify a set of constraints that affected performance (i.e., pilots had to rapidly discriminate between two identical controls) and led to design modifications (i.e., alternative handles). This principled approach to the assessment and design of complex sociotechnical systems (e.g., an aircraft cockpit) is the cornerstone of the field.

In the ensuing 60 years, the field has expanded, and human factors is often presented as a catchall label for a discipline that encompasses tasks familiar to engineering psychology, industrial engineering, ergonomics, systems engineering, human–computer interface design, and software usability. Most recently, human factors, along with much of psychology, has been greatly influenced by the advancement of cognitive science. A variety of theories and approaches, including naturalistic decision making, shared mental models theory, and metacognition, have markedly influenced current approaches. The result is a greater focus on the information-processing and decision-making aspects of job performance. Furthermore, the many recent advances within cognitive engineering and cognitive psychology provide human factors professionals with additional tools for knowledge elicitation and measurement of knowledge structures.

This broader context, leveraging interdisciplinary methods to enhance the relationship or fit between humans and work environments, can be thought of as a method of human-centered engineering (HCE). The objectives of HCE, therefore, are to understand human skills and knowledge, study and analyze work environments, design better interactions between humans and technology, and engineer better teams and organizations. The underlying intention is to prepare and enable humans to excel at their work. The use of models within HCE, both descriptive and executable, provides a framework to analyze work processes and identify opportunities and means for performance enhancement. Within this context there remains a focus on design that harks back to landing gear controls and views the work environment as changeable and a source of constraints on human performance. There are several defining characteristics of the HCE approach.

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