The terms Ergonomics and Human factors can be used to refer to the overall field of study and design concerned with designing things so that they are easy, safe, and comfortable to use.  While the term Ergonomics is more commonly used to refer to the field, especially when referring to physical products, or the physical interaction, the term Human Factors is also used.  The term Human Factors usually refers more to the user interaction with the system from a more psychological level.  (not looking at if a water faucet is too hard to turn, but if it is intuitively placed and the direction of rotation that turns it on is intuitive)  The difference between the terms is often industry or country specific, with some industries or countries using only one or the other to refer to both parts of the field.

Physical Ergonomics refers exclusively to the physical interactions people have with devices; making these interactions safe, error free, and efficient.  Common associations with this field are ergonomic office chairs or ergonomic split keyboards.

Cognitive Ergonomics refers exclusively to how people or teams interact with a system (or each other while using a system) from a psychological perspective.  Common examples are how some MP3 players are more intuitive than others, or how VCRs were notoriously overly complex to program.

Ergonomics is important to almost every industry in a variety of ways.  Many ergonomics theories or principles apply just as well across a wide range of industries.  For example, theories about attention may be used to design a consumer alarm clock, anesthesiologist’s patient respiration equipment, and a nuclear reactor plant’s alarm system.  It is the goal of many ergonomics researchers to make sure that their work can be applied across multiple domains.  What makes ergonomics an engineering science is its quantitative rigor in analyzing and designing systems, and the learning being domain independent.

Definition originally posted June 25, 2009.  Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.