Emerging Needs and Opportunities for Human Factors Research (1995) / Chapter Skim
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Part I: Summary Report
Part I: Summary Report
Pages 11-68
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PART I Summary Report 11
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration became a sponsor in 1981. The committee's charter was to identify basic research needs of the military services as they relate to human factors issues and to make recommendations for basic research that would improve the foundations of the discipline.
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Figure 1 gives a complete list of the reports produced by these panels and workshops. Since the committee's establishment, its sponsorship has broadened con 1994 Organizational Linkages: Understanding the Productivity Paradox 1993 Workload Transition: Implications for Individual and Team Performance 1992 Human Factors Specialists' Education and Utilization: Results of a Survey 1990 Application Principles for Multicolored Displays: A Workshop Report Quantitative Modeling of Human Performance in Complex, Dynamic Systems Distributed Decision Making: Report of a Workshop Human Factors Research Needs for an Aging Population 1989 Human Performance Models for Computer-Aided Engineering Fundamental Issues in Human-Computer Interaction 1988 Human Factors Research and Nuclear Safety Ergonomic Models of Anthropometry, Human Biomechanics, and Operator-Equipment Interfaces: Proceedings of a Workshop 1987 Human Factors in Automated and Robotic Space Systems: Proceedings of a Symposium Mental Models in Human-Computer Interaction: Research Issues About What the User of Software Knows 1985 Human Factors Aspects of Simulation Methods for Designing Software to Fit Human Needs and Capabilities: Proceedings of the Workshop on Software Human Factors 1984 Research Needs on the Interaction Between Information Systems and Their Users: Report of a Workshop Research Issues in Simulator Sickness: Proceedings of a Workshop 1983 Research and Modeling of Supervisory Control Behavior: Report of a Workshop FIGURE 1 Reports of the Committee on Human Factors, 1983-1994.
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In view of these developments, the committee found it appropriate to again address the general topic of research needs and opportunities for human factors. Committee members agreed that the report should be: • reflective of the committee's views and opinions, and also informed by inputs from several sources; • forward looking: short on reviewing old and current work and long on identifying problems and opportunities for the future; • problem/opportunity-oriented: the subject matter being determined more by what the committee perceives the needs and opportunities to be than by its understanding of what the existing research activities of the human factors community are; and • selectively focused -- with no attempt to be comprehensive -- on a few major topics that the committee believes to be among the more important problem/opportunity areas for the near future.
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The committee intentionally took a relatively broad view of human factors and did not exclude a problem area simply because it has not traditionally been a major focus of the discipline. As it happens, the topics are fairly easily grouped under three major headings -- national or global problems, technology issues, and human performance -- as follows: National or global problems • Productivity in organizations • Training and education • Employment and disabilities • Health care • Environmental change Technology issues • Communication technology and telenetworking • Information access and usability • Emerging technologies in work design • Transportation Human performance • Cognitive performance under stress • Aiding intellectual work Two topics the committee considers to be priority research areas -- human performance modeling and human error -- are not covered in this
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It continues to be easy to find equipment and operating procedures being designed in ways that are inconsistent with well-documented human factors research results. How to improve the dissemination of the results of human factors research, how to make this information readily available to users in a helpful form, and how to make potential users aware of its existence, are continuing major challenges to human factors researchers and to everyone who recognizes the potential usefulness of the results of human factors research.
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Some of the committee's recommendations are relatively general; others, quite specific. Some follow traditional lines of research; others relate to problems that have not received much attention from the human factors community in the past.
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Many economists, however, are concerned that productivity in the United States is not what it should be and that the nation's competitiveness will continue to decline if ways are not found to accelerate the rate of productivity increase. Human factors researchers have given considerable attention to the question of how to improve human performance in the workplace and thereby increase individual productivity.
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Another opportunity for research is the linkage between individual and organizational productivity. Focusing on single levels of analysis (e.g., individual, group)
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The opportunity for human factors researchers is to provide new insights into how combinations of changes in technology, organization, and people factors contribute to organizational productivity. A fourth opportunity for research concerns internal and external integration.
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, the Commission on Workforce Quality and Labor Market Efficiency (1989) , the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce (1990)
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Understanding the interactions among these variables requires using a systemsanalytic approach that human factors researchers have effectively applied to the study of many other kinds of complex systems. The challenge is to apply such methods to the study of training when outcome requirements arise from interactions among changing technologies, changing workforce demographics, and changing organizational structures.
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Formal procedures used by human factors researchers to identify or analyze the skills, knowledge, and abilities that are requisite to the adequate performance of specific tasks should be useful in establishing education and training goals, but there is also a need for the development of more effective methods of identifying cognitive, as opposed to psychomotor, task demands. Despite the widely acknowledged imperfection of current education and training systems and programs and the considerable amount of money and
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Human factors researchers have experience in evaluating the effectiveness of complex systems of many types and thus should be in a position to help meet this need. EMPLOYMENT AND DISABILITIES The Problem The population of people with one or another type of physical or cognitive disability is very large.
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Specifically, any given type of disability usually impedes only some of the activities required by some jobs, and often even those impediments can be removed or overcome by restructuring the job or using assistive technology. A major need is for a much better understanding of precisely how the capabilities and limitations associated with specific disabilities relate to the functional requirements of specific jobs.
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As was noted already, the development of devices to assist people with disabilities in overcoming specific functional limitations has received considerable attention, especially from scientists and engineers who may be keenly aware of the kind of assistance that is needed because they are disabled in some way or because someone close to them is. Human factors researchers have been somewhat involved in these efforts, but this has not been a major focus of the discipline as a whole.
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An important challenge to research is developing ways to reduce the incidence of human error in the delivery of health care; this issue is likely to grow in importance as the technology that is available for health care delivery becomes ever more complex. Previous Research Although there have been attempts to call attention to the many challenges that medicine and health care delivery provide for human factors researchers (e.g., Pickett and Triggs, 1974)
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These include developing and evaluating memory aids to help people take medicines in proper dosages on schedule; improving the interpretability of labels, warnings, and instructions on medicines and on health care devices that are intended to be used by nonprofessionals in the home; and developing and evaluating practical approaches to training in the use of such devices. Important questions for research are how to convey to nonspecialists accurate and understandable representations of (1)
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In part because these techniques are very expensive, it is important to understand exactly what advantages they offer and how useful they are for diagnosis, compared with one another and with more traditional diagnostic techniques. The appropriate cost-benefit comparisons require the use of psychophysical and statistical approaches of the type that have been widely used by human factors researchers and applied psychologists on similar comparison problems and on this problem as well (Swets et al., 1979; Swets, 1988)
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ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE The Problem Although the problems of harmful environmental change are not usually associated with human factors research, the topic is included in this report because the committee considers it a serious national and international problem and believes that human factors research could contribute to a better understanding of, and perhaps solutions to, aspects of it. Concern about the threat that certain changes in the environment pose for the future has been growing among scientists, policy makers, and the public.
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It is, however, one the human factors community should be well suited to take. We believe there is a need both for continuation of research on ways to motivate people to behave in environmentally benign ways and for much greater attention to the possibility of shaping technology so that the natural consequences of its use will be less environmentally damaging.
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A challenge to human factors researchers is to help ensure that such facilities are well designed from the users' point of view; there is, however, also a need for research that will lead to a better understanding of what factors, in addition to interface design, make these systems more acceptable to potential users and of how to facilitate the transition to their use. Making mass public transportation more attractive, so that it is more often used as an alternative to private automobiles in urban areas, is also in the interest of environmental protection because it will reduce the energy expenditure per passenger mile traveled.
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The establishment and proliferation of computer networks have been accompanied by -- indeed made possible by -- an ever-increasing blurring of the distinction between computer and communication technologies. For instance, computing resources are heavily used in the operation of communication networks, and the capabilities and services to which these networks provide access include electronic mail and bulletin boards, computer-mediated teleconferencing, and information utilities of many types.
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Indeed the general area of human-computer interaction has perhaps been the fastest-growing area of research done by human factors researchers and others in closely allied fields over the last few decades. This work has been reported in several journals that focus on the subject, most of which have come into existence during the last 20 years.
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Realization of the potential benefits of computer networks requires the development of a variety of tools that facilitate interaction with complex databases by both specialists and the public. Tools are also needed to help people apply information technology effectively to manage their personal data stores and to cope with the information overload that a greatly increased connectivity to information resources and to people can create.
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The success with which this scenario can be played out in specific instances will depend, to no small extent, on how well the many human factors issues relating to the design of the underlying systems are resolved.
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An essential aspect of any effort to make information more accessible to people who need or want to use it, however, must be attention to a variety of human factors issues relating to the ways in which people might interface with information repositories and tools that are intended to facilitate finding, using, and conveying information. Moreover, this attention will need to extend beyond the technical user of information systems because the proportion of the labor force that engages in information handling has been increasing rapidly and is expected to continue to do so (Koenig, 1990)
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. Research Needs and Opportunities A continuing human factors challenge relating to complex information systems is interface design.
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. Many human factors issues must be addressed if interface designs are to be optimized for particular combinations of information systems and the users they are intended to serve.
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People already have extensive experience navigating in space; this creates a strong argument for attempting to exploit spatial metaphors in the design of tools for helping people interact effectively with large complex databases and information networks. But effective use of spatial metaphors will require addressing a number of unresolved issues: determining how best to represent data that have a dimensionality greater than two or three, developing effective methods for helping users maintain their orientation (keep from getting lost)
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. Improving manufacturing, for example, will require attention to human factors issues conceived sufficiently broadly to include the social psychology of the functioning of work groups as well as classical ergonomics.
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In time, the importance of taking into account the interactions among individuals in work settings was recognized, as was the need to apply a systems perspective to the study of complexes involving both people and machines. Despite the attention that job design has received from human factors researchers, most jobs still are not designed in any rigorous sense, but they evolve -- often being forced to change in order to accommodate the introduction of new technology, but not necessarily in optimal or even satisfactory ways.
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There are many opportunities for human factors research on both decreasing the probability of human error in the workplace and enhancing product quality by improving the designs of work processes and procedures. The study of human error in certain types of information work -- programming or software design, for example -- poses a special challenge because errors may be very difficult to identify and it may be almost impossible to trace back to them from their eventual effects.
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industry in a rapidly changing world; this is indeed a serious challenge for the nation. We believe human factors researchers can significantly contribute to meeting this challenge.
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Previous Research The available knowledge base for understanding proficient driving and traffic safety skills in motor vehicle operation can be characterized as extensive but fragmented. As already mentioned, several sources of human error have been researched; what is missing, however, is a conceptual model that specifies a coherent research agenda for describing driving performance under a variety of conditions with a range of technological alternatives.
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Work is also going forward on driver attitudes toward risk or risk tolerance. Recent findings suggest that some drivers have a risk tolerance threshold that is constant.
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A truly basic need is for a better systemic representation of the human in the system. Ideally, the community of human factors researchers would create a model to identify the human attributes that contribute most to performance.
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Accident investigations have found that a number of factors at the regulatory and organizational level, as well as at the individual level, contribute to the inadequacy of safeguards against fatal decisions. Effort should be directed toward developing a taxonomy of human factors problems at various levels that could be applied to the analysis of accidents and incidents.
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Jobs at which people must work continuously at a near-maximum pace to maintain production quotas, or in which inadequate personal space or privacy create social tension, or in which one has little job security are examples of jobs that can cause chronic stress. Previous Research The psychological literature on stress is huge, and a considerable amount of work has been done on the effects of stress on cognition (Hamilton and Warburton, 1979; Hockey, 1983, 1986; Hockey and Hamilton, 1983)
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, the effects of chronic stress hold surprises that seem inaccessible via standard laboratory techniques. Research Needs and Opportunities A priority for future research on the effects of stress on cognitive performance must be a search for feasible solutions to the limitations of laboratory methods.
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In addition to learning more about the effects of stress on cognitive performance, a major challenge for human factors research is the development of effective ways to counteract the more detrimental of those effects. Approaches to handling stress include attempting to eliminate stressors or to lessen their strength, reducing the stress reactions of individuals, selecting people with high tolerance for stress for stressful jobs, training people to function effectively even when stressed, and "stress-proofing" systems so they will function smoothly even when their operators are stressed.
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These tools include electronic dictionaries, thesauruses, spelling verifiers, spreadsheets, design aids, conferencing systems for group work, models for weather forecasting, medical diagnostic aids, and systems to help people visualize structures such as complex molecules or airflow patterns on an aircraft wing. It seems certain that efforts to develop additional and more powerful aids to intellectual work will continue for the foreseeable future.
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. These are atypical, however; more commonly human factors researchers have become involved in development efforts only
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Human factors researchers can also contribute to the design, implementation, and evaluation of new aids for intellectual work. They bring to the process an iterative design philosophy and a unique focus on users' needs that has proved to be important in the development of systems whose ultimate characteristics were impossible to specify in detail in advance.
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The need for interdisciplinary collaboration is itself a challenge, however, to all the disciplines involved and may require the human factors community to broaden its conceptualization of what constitutes legitimate research. In particular, human factors researchers must be willing, at least in some instances, to take responsibility for initiating and successfully completing interdisciplinary projects to produce significant aids, with all the burdens
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Panel on Human Performance Modeling, Committee on Human Factors, National Re search Council. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
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Croft 1987 Retrieval techniques. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 22:109 145.
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1980 Aftereffects of stress on human performance and social behavior: a review of research and theory. Psychological Bulletin 88:82-108.
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1988 Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques. Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance, National Research Council.
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1983 Stress and Fatigue in Human Performance. Chichester, England: Wiley.
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1990 Information services and downstream productivity. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 25:55-86.
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1988 Human resource training and development. Annual Review of Psychology 39:545 582.
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Scientific American 259(2)
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1990 Human Error. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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Winkel 1990 Environmental psychology. Annual Review of Psychology 41:441-477.
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Wickens, C.D. 1992 Engineering Psychology and Human Performance, 2nd.
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68 EMERGING NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR HUMAN FACTORS RESEARCH Yates, J.F. 1990 Judgment and Decision Making.
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