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The present and future of human factors
Ap~liedErgonomics 1982, 13.4, 281-287
The present and future of human factors D. Meister US Navy PersonnelResearchand DevelopmentCenter,San Diego,California 92152, USA
In view of the problems facing human factors specialists, how do they feel about the present status of their profession and its future prospects? A small number of highly qualified practitioners were asked their opinions about various questions which have been discussed in two previous articles in this series. In a 1979 survey they agreed that designers rarely solicit human engineering assistance and resist human engineering inputs; that the behavioural research reported in the literature is of relatively little value in system development work; that government does not monitor human engineering in system development very effectively. In a survey performed for this article, specialists were generally optimistic about the future of their discipline but concerned about government funding and job support under the Reagan administration; felt that engineering and public acceptance of human factors is increasing slowly; were ambivalent about any significant improvement in methodology; and considered that the scope of human factors work would expand in the future. The need for human factors should increase in the future and the future looks reasonably promising if specialists learn to deal with a rapidly changing technological environment.
Keywords: Human engineering, system development, problem solving
I ntroduction
(4)
In two previous articles (Meister, 1982a, b) the problems facing the human engineer working in system development (as well as human factors specialists in general) were described. The most important of these problems are:
(5)
(1)
Questions as global as these have no absolute answer and empirical data bearing on them are almost non-existent. One way of approximating an answer is to solicit the opinions of those most knowledgeable about human factors. These are available in answers to two questionnaire surveys performed by the author, one in 1979 and another specifically for this article.
(2) (3)
Negative engineering and management attitudes toward human factors; Inadequate funding for human engineering in system development; Inadequate techniques for solving behavioural problems arising during system development.
This article addresses the present and future status of human factors relative to these problems; specifically it focuses on the following questions: (1) (2) (3)
How optimistic are human factors specialists about the future of their discipline? Will acceptance of human factors by engineering and the general public increase? Will funding by government military and civilian agencies increase or decrease and what will be the effect on jobs in human factors?
The opinionsexpressedare thoseof the author alone and do not representthe Departmentof Defenseor the Department of the Navy.
(6)
Will there be a significant improvement in human engineering methods? What will the future scope of human factors work include? What are the major problems that human factors professionals face?
It would be unfair to report these survey results without first cautioning the reader. Making predictions is in the vernacular 'a mug's game'. Even the literature on the rather more sophisticated forecasting of technological (equipment) innovations (Wise, 1976) suggests that forecasts are poor and in any case valid for no more than ten years in advance. One of the problems we encounter is the tremendous variability in any forecast based on opinion. If, of 20 people asked a question, 10 answer 'yes'; five 'maybe'; three 'no'; and two refuse to commit themselves, what is the 'true' answer? Majority opinions give us only a clue to an answer, not the answer itself. Moreover, opinions can be radically altered by rapidly changing events. So - the reader is warned.
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The 1979 survey In the 1979 survey (Meister, 1979) whose theme was the effect of government on human factors, 27 human engineers responded along with 24 research contractors and 30 government laboratory personnel and managers. The survey was deliberately elitist; it solicited only the opinions of those the author considered to be most qualified to answer his questions. As one would expect, the company human factors group spends most of its time (63%) supporting system development (whether or not funded by the government), 24% of its time on government-funded research contracts and 13% on incidental activities. Since the human engineer attempts to apply behavioural research in system development, the question of the applicability of this research - as reported in journals like Human Factors, Ergonomics or the Journal o f Applied Psychology - to his problem is important. Over half (52%) of the respondents considered that the research was nonapplicable. Obviously, many human engineers do not believe that they are getting much out of the behavioural research reported in the literature. Sample comments about these reports were that it was 'narrow', 'theoretical', with 'very little generalisability to system development'. As has been pointed out previously, the relationship between the human engineer and the designer is crucial for the effectiveness of human engineering. 64% of the human engineers felt that designers on their own are incapable of understanding human factors inputs. However, some respondents pointed out that engineers may understand these inputs but do not push for their incorporation in design. There are large individual variations in designer human engineer relationships. 76% agreed that designers do not solicit human engineering assistance. Again there are individual variations, special individuals and special circumstances, but the armed neutrality between designer and human engineer seems the same as it was when it was first described 15 years ago (Meister and Farr, 1967). A key element in securing designer co-operation appears to be a supportive management. Respondents suggested a number of reasons to explain the negative designer- human engineer relationship: the designer's wish to function with complete autonomy; his view of human factors requirements as merely additional constraints; the human factors group's reputation which may not be very positive. Human engineers may also have difficulty communicating their ideas to designers. Slightly more than half (57%) of human engineers felt that there is still considerable resistance on the part of designers to the inclusion of human factors inputs in design. The positive side is that almost half (41%) feel that the situation is improving somewhat. And indeed it may be improving, because in years past almost all human engineers would have given a negative answer on this point. Some human engineers felt that if behavioural inputs are 'reasonable', engineers will accept them. Unfortunately human factors inputs are sometimes inadequate and this creates resistance to or rather avoidance of the inputs. This resistance may result in part from the fact that, as many of the respondents (72%) felt, engineers may find human factors inputs to design insufficiently precise and quantitative. Some pointed out that human factors data
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must be translated by human engineers into specific design terms or else the input is merely an additional burden to the designer. Not unexpectedly, almost all the human engineers (96%) felt that, left on their own, designers would not incorporate human factors considerations in design as effectively as would human engineers. There is considerable variability among designers, a few being highly proficient in human factors methods, the remainder much less so. If designers handled behavioural problems on their own, obvious problems might be caught but not the more subtle ones. Since, as was pointed out previously, design tends to be an adversary process between inputs from different disciplines, motivation to incorporate behavioural inputs - or rather the lack of motivation - becomes critical. Many human engineers (60%) view their work as depending more on the human engineer's special talents and persuasiveness than on a formal body of principles and data, which one can call science. By a very large majority (78%) human engineers felt that behavioural research data are generally inadequate to answer behavioural questions arising during system development. Their data do not lend themselves to concrete design operations. In general, the human engineer needs more specific detail than he can find in the literature. More molecular aspects such as controls or displays are fairly well covered in the literature, whereas others such as task design are not. Almost half of the human engineers (48%) felt that if human factors is not more influential in system development, it is because the necessary backup data are not available. Do human engineering handbooks like Woodson (1981) or Van Cott and Kinkade (1972) and military standards like 1472C (Department of Defense, 1981) provide sufficient information to handle the great majority of human factors design situations encountered? 44% said yes, 54% said no. 80% felt that behavioural research performed under government sponsorship does not sufficiently address system development problems. On the other hand, some suggest that data are available but may not be used adequately; in other words, that the interpretation of research results is perhaps as important as the research itself. 64% of the respondents felt that the influence human factors had on overall system development is minimal: A similar majority (69%) felt that other priorities such as cost or reliability seriously diminish the influence of behavioural inputs on design. With all this there is reason for hope. Three out of four human engineers felt that over the years designers have shown increasing appreciation of human factors in design. The older ones tend to be more conservative. Perhaps as these r e t i r e . . .
The 1982 survey In this survey of 58 questionnaires mailed, 45 (approximately 78%) were returned. The survey consisted of a series of propositions to which those surveyed responded by checking one of five categories indicating degree of agreement or disagreement or amount of increase/ decrease. It was a condition that all responses be anonymous, especially since a number of those reporting hold high positions in industry and government.
A bare recital of those agreeing or disagreeing with a particular proposition would tell the reader very little. About half the respondents provided detailed explanations of their opinions and these are presented in summary fashion immediately following each topic question. Responses are phrased in terms of percentages because the number responding to individual questions varied slightly (for a few questions, by 2 or 3).
The future of human factors in the near term (5-10 years) 95% were either optimistic or highly optimistic. Some of this optimism arises from respondents' conviction that civilian-oriented human factors will become increasingly more important. The perceived emphasis on defence spending by the present government administration bodes well in their opinion for human engineering in system development. They see the shock effect on the public of the Three Mile Island nuclear incident as being quite important for human factors. In addition, there is some feeling that the tremendous increase in automation and computerisation and the behavioural problems associated with these will require more human factors work. Others feel optimistic because they see the scope of human factors expanding into consumer products and industry which they believe have a greater potential demand than human factors specialists will be able to supply.
The future of human factors in the long term (10+ years) Again 95% were optimistic or highly optimistic. Optimism for the long term is even greater than for the near future. There may be some temporary reduction in human factors activity because of 'Reaganomics' which worries many specialists, but the long term future is seen as good because of the increasing complexity of the systems people have to operate and maintain. Again, many see the long term future of human factors as involved more with civilian than with military uses of equipment but they are cautious about this. They feel that there is an implicit need for human factors but that that need has not yet been fully realised by those who should utilise our products. The expansion of human factors is seen as paralleling and depending on the increasing recognition by engineers and the general public of that need. A number of respondents were afraid that other disciplines such as industrial engineering would assimilate human factors and we will either lose our identity or at least become less behaviourally oriented.
Engineering/public acceptance of human factors This is generally seen as increasing (90%). A major problem still persisting is the lack of acceptance by engineers of the value of human factors work. Respondents cite indices of greater approval, such as human engineering being mentioned in advertisements for commercial products, as well as the importance attributed to human engineering by the investigatory arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office (1981). The Three Mile Island incident with its emphasis on human error was helpful in this connection. Some human factors specialists feel that additional publicity is necessary and appeal for more public relations activity. Others feel that acceptance has been especially good in the civilian sector. Some of the optimism with regard to acceptance assumes that it is inevitable because of an implicit need for human factors (a form of 'manifest
destiny') because systems are becoming more complex. Nevertheless there is a strong underlying feeling that human factors is still a minority discipline and must prove itself anyway it can. Most realise that acceptance will take time.
Military financial support of human factors system development There is some feeling that restricted government funding will cut human factors down a bit. Thus although of those responding to this question 52% felt that funding would increase somewhat, 41% felt that government support would either remain the same or decrease. The optimism reported previously with regard to human factors as a whole does not seem to carry over quite as strongly to military support, although new systems should be developed as a result of the massive infusion of money into the military. The money would then trickle down to human factors. Those in the research end of things fear that funding for human factors research will be downgraded in favour of applied development.
Non-military financial support of human factors system development There is also some pessimism about non-military support of human factors in a time of straitened circumstances. Only 36% feel that non-military support will increase; the remainder feel that it will either remain the same or decrease. The present administration's curtailment of funding for work in civilian agencies like Labour, Transportation, etc, will hurt. Nuclear power is considered about the only exception to this. Respondents recall that in any event the amount of non-military government support of human factors has never been very great. There is some hope that following the present administration there will be an upsurge. Industry may take up the slack.
Future improvement in human factors methodology Respondents are very divided on this point, 48% seeing some improvements, 24% being non-committal, and 26% disagreeing. If new methodological approaches are needed, no one seems to know what these would be. Part of the negativism about methodology is a carryover from the general pessimism resulting from government cutbacks. Another point of view is that if the methodology we do have is not being applied (by engineers, presumably), why do we need more sophistication? What will these new methods be? Computer-aided design is what most people think of; others, field research and multivariate problems, particularly where highly robust techniques are needed; but see Topmiller (1981 ). The pace of methodological development will be slow.
Human factors jobs in civilian system development There is considerable optimism about the availability of jobs in civilian system development based in part on the increased attention given human factors by Three Mile Island and by the increase in computerisation. 85% of the respondents felt that the number of civilian oriented jobs will increase, only 13% that they would remain the same or decrease somewhat. The increase in jobs will occur in high technology companies that are at the forefront of research and development for civilian products such as computers, communications and electronics. For many the rationale for
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the increase in jobs is an article of faith based on the concept of a consumer 'demand' which, being inevitable, will somehow manifest itself. This faith is tied also to a feeling that military human factors, where we began and where we are still most active, is somehow not fully respectable because it is non-productive, whereas consumer human factors is good because it satisfies people's wants. Many respondents are, however, afraid that the current recession will slow down any civilian progress, that the 'civilianisation' of human factors is a long term phenomenon. In the near term there may be a loss in civilian employment but this will be reversed later.
In both cases there is agreement that the scope will increase, but greater agreement that the variety of topics will expand. The expansion will be into new consumer and social areas. Some of the respondents who perhaps have a wider viewpoint see human factors as being applied to just about everything in our culture. We are presumably only at the beginning of this trend. Others say that the number of problems to be solved by human factors may not increase but that their nature will change. There is a feeling that technological changes will force a change in scope and that there will also be greater opportunities for cross-disciplinary work.
Human factors jobs in military system development
Problems facing human factors professionals
There is much less optimism about jobs resulting from military system development. Only half (54%) say the number of such jobs will increase somewhat, the remainder feeling that the number of jobs will either remain the same or decrease. Some feel that the military will devote its money to systems that do not require extensive human engineering, others that human factors has not yet convinced the military that it is worth supporting. Those who are optimistic see the manpower situation in the American military (ie, the all volunteer force) as creating a demand for human factors to assure maximum ultilisation of systems.
A final question asked respondents to rank seven major problems facing human factors. Table 1 lists the problems, the number of respondents ranking each problem along the scale of 1 to 7 and the mean ranking of the problem. This last was determined by multiplying the number ranking a problem in each category by the rank of that category (eg, 7 respondents in rank 1 = 7), then adding the total per problem (eg, (7 x 1) + (6 x 2) + (9 x 3 ) . . . = 90) and, since not all respondents ranked every problem, dividing by the number of respondents ranking that problem (eg, 90 + 31 = 2.90). The lower the ranking, the higher the priority the problem has.
Human factors/obs in research
The two problems tied almost in a dead heat are the problem of demonstrating the worth of human factors (2"88) and lack of adequate professional training (2-90). The first is the acceptance problem again. The second, a feeling that many of those claiming to be human engineers are not completely qualified.
There appears to be no great anticipation that jobs in human factors research will increase. Only 28% of respondents felt that these jobs will increase; 51% that they would remain the same; and 20% that they would decrease. Part of the problem is the present economic climate which is depressing and the feeling that the Reagan administration and government as a whole are more application than research-minded. In consequence the biggest growth surge may occur in applications, which translates into human engineering in industry. If there is to be any improvement in the research picture, it will take time.
Enough has already been said about the problem of gaining acceptance (which is next in importance with a ranking of 3-13) to which the demonstration of human factors worth is tightly linked. The problem of lack of adequate training is one which frankly the author had not thought was a serious one. That it is serious is suggested not only by the responses to this survey item but also by the Committee on Human Factors of the National Research Council, which recently ran a workshop to consider the problem of post-graduate education and those techniques for which human factors professionals need most retraining.
Scope of human factors work Almost everyone (94%) agrees that this will increase in the future. One can think of scope in terms of the number of human factors jobs that will become available or the range of topics the human engineer will have to deal with.
Table 1: Ranking of problems facing human factors professionals
Number in rank category 1
2
3
4
5
6
12
7
4
2
4
3
2
34
98
2-88
Lack of adequate training
7
6
9
4
3
1
1
31
90
2.90
Poor acceptance
5
6
6
6
4
2
29
91
3-13
Too few professionals
3
9
4
5
2
5
28
93
3.32
Inadequate training
6
3
7
2
5
2
3
28
99
3"53
Lack of government support
3
5
3
10
3
2
2
28
103
3"67
1
1
6
6
14
85
6"07
Problem Worth of human factors
Not enough jobs
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Number Total responding rankvalue Mean rank
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There is some feeling that there are too few human factors professionals (ranking of 3.32) which may be linked to lack of adequate training. The problem of inadequate techniques (ranking of 3.53) did not seem to bother respondents as much as the author had anticipated; they may believe that there are many techniques and the difficulty is one of not using them.
welfare, police) but there it is wise to be circumspect because of the many political factors influencing the design of such systems. Overall the future for human factors looks reasonably promising if (1)
Human factors specialists obtain and maintain the necessary level of competence in dealing with a very rapidly changing system/hardware environment. Specifically, the rate of computerisation, and the increasing degree of sophistication of computer-based systems, will be the big challenge to human factors practitioners.
(2)
New tools are provided for human engineering application which the human engineer has the ability to understand and apply.
(3)
Human factors practitioners make the effort to improve the level of their professionalism (ie, competence) and the relevance of human factors research to real world problems. Currently much human factors research is academic in orientation, and, as we have seen, not particularly useful in a workoriented context. Its emphasis must be reoriented to the real world system.
Lack of government support is apparently not the most pressing problem for respondents and this is tied to the problem of insufficient number of jobs which few thought was important enough to rank and those who did felt it was much less important than the other problems noted.
The cloudy crystal ball* From the variability in responses to the two surveys, it is clear that the future of human factors is just as obscure to our 'experts' as it is to the reader. However, certain trends are apparent. The need for human factors in the future The need for human factors assistance should increase in the years to come because (1)
(2)
Technological sophistication will increase so much that it will significantly exceed the capability of personnel to operate and maintain systems (particularly the latter). The discrepancy between technological sophistication and personnel capability is already evident in the United States Navy. For example, one highly advanced propulsion system had to be removed from a number of ships and replaced at great expense with one less advanced because personnel did not have the expertise to utilise the former. The fact that less qualified personnel enter the military services and industrial production lines will exacerbate the problem posed by technological sophistication. Among less qualified personnel one finds women, people whose mental and/or educational qualifications are less than desired and people from developing countries. Women may be somewhat culturally deprived because their upbringing tends to reduce their contact with technology. The need for military personnel has led to the recruitment of personnel with less than a high school (leaving school) certificate, some of whom are functionally illiterate. Opportunities for human factors may expand significantly in the design of equipment for Third World people (see the December 1968 issue of Human
Factors). Changes in future human factors scope Further expansion of human factors efforts will take place in the civilian sector; the demand for human engineering of military systems will level off. Computers, office furniture, medical systems, trucks and tractors, process control systems, ships and aircraft - to name only a few; it is reasonable to hypothesise that all will be exploited by human factors more fully in the further, if not nearer, future. There may be some tentative human factors advances into the design of social systems (eg, *The author acknowledges with pleasure the contribution of R.A. Newman to the writing of this section.
The single most significant technical driving force for human factors in the next two decades will be the increasing sophistication of computer systems and the concurrent developments in artificial intelligence and 'cognitive science'. The result will be very different capabilities for systems and system hardware which will also change the functions of operators as well. It is almost a clich~ to say that computer-based systems have changed the operator's role from user to monitor and/or decision-maker. The expanded capabilities of such systems will result in the computer and software doing much of what is now considered monitoring and decision-making, in particular data reduction, the analysis of relationships and some evaluative functions. The results will probably be that future human factors design technology will have to meet new (and as yet undefined) criteria involving display content, data rates, user/user interaction and user/system interaction. These modifications will also mean changes of emphasis for the human engineer. For example, with increased automation, personnel will become system managers in the sense that operator functions will emphasise complex and creative information processing, analyses and decisionmaking rather than routine operations. Design implications will centre around the cognitive rather than psychomotor functions. With computerisation the human engineer will be concerned more about software than hardware. If systems, because of complexity, become increasingly more difficult to maintain, he will be asked to turn his attention to design for maintainability, an area most human engineers working in system development have managed to steer clear of (because of its difficulty). There have been continuing efforts - and one presumes that they will continue to be made - to bring the human engineer into the very early phases of system development, when the system is only a glint in the developer's eye and only the rough outlines of the system can be discerned conceptually. If the human engineer does get more involved in earlier system development phases, his expertise will have to emphasise much more sophisticated analytic techniques.
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New developments in modelling and simulation technology, new mathematical tools and new methods of working with time-variant dynamic variables are becoming available for application to system analysis. These may represent the next generation of system development technology in human factors.
lmplicationsfor the human engineer of the future These implications centre around the functions the human engineer will perform in future system development and his training to perform those functions. It seems unlikely that his development functions will change significantly because, ff he performs as he ideally should, he is presently involved with all behavioural aspects of the system and this will not change. The critical behavioural questions raised in system development will not change substantially with technological sophistication; they may become even more important. The training of the future human engineer should change a bit more. With computerisation one can see much more emphasis being given to mathematics and statistics, to learning about computers, how to use them, how to program them and how to use computer-aided design tools. A major area of emphasis in the training of prospective human engineers will be highly sophisticated mathematical analyses which underly the increasing sophistication of computerised systems. Many human factors specialists are not currently trained in these areas and may have difficulty communicating with the designers of such systems. Designing for the operator as system manager should require more academic training in mathematical decisionmaking and cognitive processes. It is the author's impression that universities whose human factors training programmes are well known, eg, North Carolina State University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, do heavily emphasise those areas for their graduate students and the loading will increase in the future. Fortunately an increasing number of students are entering the university Human Factors programme with a background considerably broader than one finds in the traditional academic psychology department. However, it is the current generation of human factors practitioners that will determine the course of the discipline's development in the next two decades.
Technological lag in human factors It is obvious to everyone that human factors is evolving. If one makes the assumption, as the author does, that human factors effectiveness depends upon the adequacy of its methods, one must ask whether our technology, ie, the totality of our methods, is also evolving. The answer to this question is somewhat disturbing. The author sees little evidence that human factors practitioners as a whole are concerned about methodology. If in some respects we move rapidly, in others progress is intolerably slow. To the great majority of human engineers, human factors methodology is the methodology of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The author was recently required to write a report describing analytic techniques used in system development (Meister, 1982c, in press) and found himself consulting volumes written in the early 1960s (Folley et al, 1960) because nothing newer was available or adequate. Useful descriptions of such basic (and primitive) techniques as time line analysis, operational sequence diagrams, work-
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load analysis, etc, are almost non-existent. It is even unclear to what extent these methods are actually used in development and how. It cannot be repeated sufficiently that human factors will be able to capitalise on the opportunities of the future only to the extent that its methods are appropriate to those opportunities. There are of course computerised models and methods (eg, CAFES - Boeing, 1975) but as Topmiller (1981) has pointed out there is little application of these methods, perhaps because these 'advances' do not answer the questions actually asked during system development. Beyond that, where is the quantitative, probabilistic human performance data base that many have been clamouring for for years? How well do we know the basic mechanisms of system development with which human factors technology must mesh? Why is it that we can do so little in the area of design for maintainability? As we trip bright-eyed into the future, we leave a large vacuum of unsatisfied needs behind US.
What must be done? The author has no immediate solution to the problems that have been raised in this series of articles, nor is he presumptuous enough to suggest one. As a minimum, however, human engineers can examine the issues and discuss them. Do most human engineers fred the problems discussed in these articles to be real problems? Are there things that can realistically be done to help solve them? It is remarkable that over the years there has been very little discussion by human engineers about their role in the system development process, although there is usually a vast amount of discussion about academic research questions. Human engineers themselves seem to fail to recognise adequately the tremendous significance (or potential significance) of their role. The system development process is one of the few crucial mechanisms determining (at least in part) our technological culture. Within that process only the human engineer really represents the behavioural aspects of that culture. If human engineers believe these things, then they should not merely accept the constraints (both external and internal) under which they perform. The human engineering function deserves the best efforts of its practitioners, not the least part of which should be an awareness of the larger significance of their work and a conscious attempt to improve its effectiveness.
References Boeing Corporation 1975 CAFES - Computer-aided function allocation evaluation system (Executive summary). Report DI80-18577-1, Crew Systems Technology, Boeing Aerospace C9, Seattle, Washington.
Department of Defense 1981 MIL-STD- 1472C. Human engineering design criteria for military systems, equipment and facilities. Washington, DC. Folley, J.D., et al (Eds) 1960 Human factors methods for system design. Report AIR-290-60-FR-225, American Institute for Research, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
General Accounting Office 1981 Effectiveness of US forces can be increased through improved weapon system design. Report PSAD-81-17, Washington, DC. Meister, D. 1979 The influence of government on human factors research and development. Proceedings, Human Factors Society Annual Meeting, 5-13. Meister, D. 1982a Applied Ergonomics, 13.2, 119-124. The role of human factors in system development.
Meister, D. 1982b Applied Ergonomics, 13.3. 219-223. Human factors problems and solutions. Meister, D. 1982c (in press) Behavioural inputs to the weapon system acquisition process. Report US Navy Personnel Research and Development Center, San Diego, California.
Meister, D., and Farr, D.E. 1967 Human Factors, 9.1, 71-87. The utilisation of human factors information by designers. Topmiller, D.A. 1981 Methods: Past approaches, current trends and future requirements. In Moraal, J., and Kraiss, K.F. (Eds). 'Manned systems design: Methods, equipment and application'. Plenum Publishing Corporation, New York. Van Cott, H.E, and Kinkade, R.G. (Eds) 1972 Human engineering guide to equipment design (revised edition), US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC. Wise, G. 1976 Futures, 8.5, 411-419. The accuracy of technological forecasts, 1890-1940. Woodson, W.E. 1981 Human factors design handbook, McGraw-Hill, New York.
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The present and future of human factors D. Meister US Navy PersonnelResearchand DevelopmentCenter,San Diego,California 92152, USA
In view of the problems facing human factors specialists, how do they feel about the present status of their profession and its future prospects? A small number of highly qualified practitioners were asked their opinions about various questions which have been discussed in two previous articles in this series. In a 1979 survey they agreed that designers rarely solicit human engineering assistance and resist human engineering inputs; that the behavioural research reported in the literature is of relatively little value in system development work; that government does not monitor human engineering in system development very effectively. In a survey performed for this article, specialists were generally optimistic about the future of their discipline but concerned about government funding and job support under the Reagan administration; felt that engineering and public acceptance of human factors is increasing slowly; were ambivalent about any significant improvement in methodology; and considered that the scope of human factors work would expand in the future. The need for human factors should increase in the future and the future looks reasonably promising if specialists learn to deal with a rapidly changing technological environment.
Keywords: Human engineering, system development, problem solving
I ntroduction
(4)
In two previous articles (Meister, 1982a, b) the problems facing the human engineer working in system development (as well as human factors specialists in general) were described. The most important of these problems are:
(5)
(1)
Questions as global as these have no absolute answer and empirical data bearing on them are almost non-existent. One way of approximating an answer is to solicit the opinions of those most knowledgeable about human factors. These are available in answers to two questionnaire surveys performed by the author, one in 1979 and another specifically for this article.
(2) (3)
Negative engineering and management attitudes toward human factors; Inadequate funding for human engineering in system development; Inadequate techniques for solving behavioural problems arising during system development.
This article addresses the present and future status of human factors relative to these problems; specifically it focuses on the following questions: (1) (2) (3)
How optimistic are human factors specialists about the future of their discipline? Will acceptance of human factors by engineering and the general public increase? Will funding by government military and civilian agencies increase or decrease and what will be the effect on jobs in human factors?
The opinionsexpressedare thoseof the author alone and do not representthe Departmentof Defenseor the Department of the Navy.
(6)
Will there be a significant improvement in human engineering methods? What will the future scope of human factors work include? What are the major problems that human factors professionals face?
It would be unfair to report these survey results without first cautioning the reader. Making predictions is in the vernacular 'a mug's game'. Even the literature on the rather more sophisticated forecasting of technological (equipment) innovations (Wise, 1976) suggests that forecasts are poor and in any case valid for no more than ten years in advance. One of the problems we encounter is the tremendous variability in any forecast based on opinion. If, of 20 people asked a question, 10 answer 'yes'; five 'maybe'; three 'no'; and two refuse to commit themselves, what is the 'true' answer? Majority opinions give us only a clue to an answer, not the answer itself. Moreover, opinions can be radically altered by rapidly changing events. So - the reader is warned.
0003-6870/82/04 0281-07 $03.00 (~ 1982 Butterworth & Co (Publishers)Ltd
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The 1979 survey In the 1979 survey (Meister, 1979) whose theme was the effect of government on human factors, 27 human engineers responded along with 24 research contractors and 30 government laboratory personnel and managers. The survey was deliberately elitist; it solicited only the opinions of those the author considered to be most qualified to answer his questions. As one would expect, the company human factors group spends most of its time (63%) supporting system development (whether or not funded by the government), 24% of its time on government-funded research contracts and 13% on incidental activities. Since the human engineer attempts to apply behavioural research in system development, the question of the applicability of this research - as reported in journals like Human Factors, Ergonomics or the Journal o f Applied Psychology - to his problem is important. Over half (52%) of the respondents considered that the research was nonapplicable. Obviously, many human engineers do not believe that they are getting much out of the behavioural research reported in the literature. Sample comments about these reports were that it was 'narrow', 'theoretical', with 'very little generalisability to system development'. As has been pointed out previously, the relationship between the human engineer and the designer is crucial for the effectiveness of human engineering. 64% of the human engineers felt that designers on their own are incapable of understanding human factors inputs. However, some respondents pointed out that engineers may understand these inputs but do not push for their incorporation in design. There are large individual variations in designer human engineer relationships. 76% agreed that designers do not solicit human engineering assistance. Again there are individual variations, special individuals and special circumstances, but the armed neutrality between designer and human engineer seems the same as it was when it was first described 15 years ago (Meister and Farr, 1967). A key element in securing designer co-operation appears to be a supportive management. Respondents suggested a number of reasons to explain the negative designer- human engineer relationship: the designer's wish to function with complete autonomy; his view of human factors requirements as merely additional constraints; the human factors group's reputation which may not be very positive. Human engineers may also have difficulty communicating their ideas to designers. Slightly more than half (57%) of human engineers felt that there is still considerable resistance on the part of designers to the inclusion of human factors inputs in design. The positive side is that almost half (41%) feel that the situation is improving somewhat. And indeed it may be improving, because in years past almost all human engineers would have given a negative answer on this point. Some human engineers felt that if behavioural inputs are 'reasonable', engineers will accept them. Unfortunately human factors inputs are sometimes inadequate and this creates resistance to or rather avoidance of the inputs. This resistance may result in part from the fact that, as many of the respondents (72%) felt, engineers may find human factors inputs to design insufficiently precise and quantitative. Some pointed out that human factors data
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must be translated by human engineers into specific design terms or else the input is merely an additional burden to the designer. Not unexpectedly, almost all the human engineers (96%) felt that, left on their own, designers would not incorporate human factors considerations in design as effectively as would human engineers. There is considerable variability among designers, a few being highly proficient in human factors methods, the remainder much less so. If designers handled behavioural problems on their own, obvious problems might be caught but not the more subtle ones. Since, as was pointed out previously, design tends to be an adversary process between inputs from different disciplines, motivation to incorporate behavioural inputs - or rather the lack of motivation - becomes critical. Many human engineers (60%) view their work as depending more on the human engineer's special talents and persuasiveness than on a formal body of principles and data, which one can call science. By a very large majority (78%) human engineers felt that behavioural research data are generally inadequate to answer behavioural questions arising during system development. Their data do not lend themselves to concrete design operations. In general, the human engineer needs more specific detail than he can find in the literature. More molecular aspects such as controls or displays are fairly well covered in the literature, whereas others such as task design are not. Almost half of the human engineers (48%) felt that if human factors is not more influential in system development, it is because the necessary backup data are not available. Do human engineering handbooks like Woodson (1981) or Van Cott and Kinkade (1972) and military standards like 1472C (Department of Defense, 1981) provide sufficient information to handle the great majority of human factors design situations encountered? 44% said yes, 54% said no. 80% felt that behavioural research performed under government sponsorship does not sufficiently address system development problems. On the other hand, some suggest that data are available but may not be used adequately; in other words, that the interpretation of research results is perhaps as important as the research itself. 64% of the respondents felt that the influence human factors had on overall system development is minimal: A similar majority (69%) felt that other priorities such as cost or reliability seriously diminish the influence of behavioural inputs on design. With all this there is reason for hope. Three out of four human engineers felt that over the years designers have shown increasing appreciation of human factors in design. The older ones tend to be more conservative. Perhaps as these r e t i r e . . .
The 1982 survey In this survey of 58 questionnaires mailed, 45 (approximately 78%) were returned. The survey consisted of a series of propositions to which those surveyed responded by checking one of five categories indicating degree of agreement or disagreement or amount of increase/ decrease. It was a condition that all responses be anonymous, especially since a number of those reporting hold high positions in industry and government.
A bare recital of those agreeing or disagreeing with a particular proposition would tell the reader very little. About half the respondents provided detailed explanations of their opinions and these are presented in summary fashion immediately following each topic question. Responses are phrased in terms of percentages because the number responding to individual questions varied slightly (for a few questions, by 2 or 3).
The future of human factors in the near term (5-10 years) 95% were either optimistic or highly optimistic. Some of this optimism arises from respondents' conviction that civilian-oriented human factors will become increasingly more important. The perceived emphasis on defence spending by the present government administration bodes well in their opinion for human engineering in system development. They see the shock effect on the public of the Three Mile Island nuclear incident as being quite important for human factors. In addition, there is some feeling that the tremendous increase in automation and computerisation and the behavioural problems associated with these will require more human factors work. Others feel optimistic because they see the scope of human factors expanding into consumer products and industry which they believe have a greater potential demand than human factors specialists will be able to supply.
The future of human factors in the long term (10+ years) Again 95% were optimistic or highly optimistic. Optimism for the long term is even greater than for the near future. There may be some temporary reduction in human factors activity because of 'Reaganomics' which worries many specialists, but the long term future is seen as good because of the increasing complexity of the systems people have to operate and maintain. Again, many see the long term future of human factors as involved more with civilian than with military uses of equipment but they are cautious about this. They feel that there is an implicit need for human factors but that that need has not yet been fully realised by those who should utilise our products. The expansion of human factors is seen as paralleling and depending on the increasing recognition by engineers and the general public of that need. A number of respondents were afraid that other disciplines such as industrial engineering would assimilate human factors and we will either lose our identity or at least become less behaviourally oriented.
Engineering/public acceptance of human factors This is generally seen as increasing (90%). A major problem still persisting is the lack of acceptance by engineers of the value of human factors work. Respondents cite indices of greater approval, such as human engineering being mentioned in advertisements for commercial products, as well as the importance attributed to human engineering by the investigatory arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office (1981). The Three Mile Island incident with its emphasis on human error was helpful in this connection. Some human factors specialists feel that additional publicity is necessary and appeal for more public relations activity. Others feel that acceptance has been especially good in the civilian sector. Some of the optimism with regard to acceptance assumes that it is inevitable because of an implicit need for human factors (a form of 'manifest
destiny') because systems are becoming more complex. Nevertheless there is a strong underlying feeling that human factors is still a minority discipline and must prove itself anyway it can. Most realise that acceptance will take time.
Military financial support of human factors system development There is some feeling that restricted government funding will cut human factors down a bit. Thus although of those responding to this question 52% felt that funding would increase somewhat, 41% felt that government support would either remain the same or decrease. The optimism reported previously with regard to human factors as a whole does not seem to carry over quite as strongly to military support, although new systems should be developed as a result of the massive infusion of money into the military. The money would then trickle down to human factors. Those in the research end of things fear that funding for human factors research will be downgraded in favour of applied development.
Non-military financial support of human factors system development There is also some pessimism about non-military support of human factors in a time of straitened circumstances. Only 36% feel that non-military support will increase; the remainder feel that it will either remain the same or decrease. The present administration's curtailment of funding for work in civilian agencies like Labour, Transportation, etc, will hurt. Nuclear power is considered about the only exception to this. Respondents recall that in any event the amount of non-military government support of human factors has never been very great. There is some hope that following the present administration there will be an upsurge. Industry may take up the slack.
Future improvement in human factors methodology Respondents are very divided on this point, 48% seeing some improvements, 24% being non-committal, and 26% disagreeing. If new methodological approaches are needed, no one seems to know what these would be. Part of the negativism about methodology is a carryover from the general pessimism resulting from government cutbacks. Another point of view is that if the methodology we do have is not being applied (by engineers, presumably), why do we need more sophistication? What will these new methods be? Computer-aided design is what most people think of; others, field research and multivariate problems, particularly where highly robust techniques are needed; but see Topmiller (1981 ). The pace of methodological development will be slow.
Human factors jobs in civilian system development There is considerable optimism about the availability of jobs in civilian system development based in part on the increased attention given human factors by Three Mile Island and by the increase in computerisation. 85% of the respondents felt that the number of civilian oriented jobs will increase, only 13% that they would remain the same or decrease somewhat. The increase in jobs will occur in high technology companies that are at the forefront of research and development for civilian products such as computers, communications and electronics. For many the rationale for
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the increase in jobs is an article of faith based on the concept of a consumer 'demand' which, being inevitable, will somehow manifest itself. This faith is tied also to a feeling that military human factors, where we began and where we are still most active, is somehow not fully respectable because it is non-productive, whereas consumer human factors is good because it satisfies people's wants. Many respondents are, however, afraid that the current recession will slow down any civilian progress, that the 'civilianisation' of human factors is a long term phenomenon. In the near term there may be a loss in civilian employment but this will be reversed later.
In both cases there is agreement that the scope will increase, but greater agreement that the variety of topics will expand. The expansion will be into new consumer and social areas. Some of the respondents who perhaps have a wider viewpoint see human factors as being applied to just about everything in our culture. We are presumably only at the beginning of this trend. Others say that the number of problems to be solved by human factors may not increase but that their nature will change. There is a feeling that technological changes will force a change in scope and that there will also be greater opportunities for cross-disciplinary work.
Human factors jobs in military system development
Problems facing human factors professionals
There is much less optimism about jobs resulting from military system development. Only half (54%) say the number of such jobs will increase somewhat, the remainder feeling that the number of jobs will either remain the same or decrease. Some feel that the military will devote its money to systems that do not require extensive human engineering, others that human factors has not yet convinced the military that it is worth supporting. Those who are optimistic see the manpower situation in the American military (ie, the all volunteer force) as creating a demand for human factors to assure maximum ultilisation of systems.
A final question asked respondents to rank seven major problems facing human factors. Table 1 lists the problems, the number of respondents ranking each problem along the scale of 1 to 7 and the mean ranking of the problem. This last was determined by multiplying the number ranking a problem in each category by the rank of that category (eg, 7 respondents in rank 1 = 7), then adding the total per problem (eg, (7 x 1) + (6 x 2) + (9 x 3 ) . . . = 90) and, since not all respondents ranked every problem, dividing by the number of respondents ranking that problem (eg, 90 + 31 = 2.90). The lower the ranking, the higher the priority the problem has.
Human factors/obs in research
The two problems tied almost in a dead heat are the problem of demonstrating the worth of human factors (2"88) and lack of adequate professional training (2-90). The first is the acceptance problem again. The second, a feeling that many of those claiming to be human engineers are not completely qualified.
There appears to be no great anticipation that jobs in human factors research will increase. Only 28% of respondents felt that these jobs will increase; 51% that they would remain the same; and 20% that they would decrease. Part of the problem is the present economic climate which is depressing and the feeling that the Reagan administration and government as a whole are more application than research-minded. In consequence the biggest growth surge may occur in applications, which translates into human engineering in industry. If there is to be any improvement in the research picture, it will take time.
Enough has already been said about the problem of gaining acceptance (which is next in importance with a ranking of 3-13) to which the demonstration of human factors worth is tightly linked. The problem of lack of adequate training is one which frankly the author had not thought was a serious one. That it is serious is suggested not only by the responses to this survey item but also by the Committee on Human Factors of the National Research Council, which recently ran a workshop to consider the problem of post-graduate education and those techniques for which human factors professionals need most retraining.
Scope of human factors work Almost everyone (94%) agrees that this will increase in the future. One can think of scope in terms of the number of human factors jobs that will become available or the range of topics the human engineer will have to deal with.
Table 1: Ranking of problems facing human factors professionals
Number in rank category 1
2
3
4
5
6
12
7
4
2
4
3
2
34
98
2-88
Lack of adequate training
7
6
9
4
3
1
1
31
90
2.90
Poor acceptance
5
6
6
6
4
2
29
91
3-13
Too few professionals
3
9
4
5
2
5
28
93
3.32
Inadequate training
6
3
7
2
5
2
3
28
99
3"53
Lack of government support
3
5
3
10
3
2
2
28
103
3"67
1
1
6
6
14
85
6"07
Problem Worth of human factors
Not enough jobs
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Number Total responding rankvalue Mean rank
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There is some feeling that there are too few human factors professionals (ranking of 3.32) which may be linked to lack of adequate training. The problem of inadequate techniques (ranking of 3.53) did not seem to bother respondents as much as the author had anticipated; they may believe that there are many techniques and the difficulty is one of not using them.
welfare, police) but there it is wise to be circumspect because of the many political factors influencing the design of such systems. Overall the future for human factors looks reasonably promising if (1)
Human factors specialists obtain and maintain the necessary level of competence in dealing with a very rapidly changing system/hardware environment. Specifically, the rate of computerisation, and the increasing degree of sophistication of computer-based systems, will be the big challenge to human factors practitioners.
(2)
New tools are provided for human engineering application which the human engineer has the ability to understand and apply.
(3)
Human factors practitioners make the effort to improve the level of their professionalism (ie, competence) and the relevance of human factors research to real world problems. Currently much human factors research is academic in orientation, and, as we have seen, not particularly useful in a workoriented context. Its emphasis must be reoriented to the real world system.
Lack of government support is apparently not the most pressing problem for respondents and this is tied to the problem of insufficient number of jobs which few thought was important enough to rank and those who did felt it was much less important than the other problems noted.
The cloudy crystal ball* From the variability in responses to the two surveys, it is clear that the future of human factors is just as obscure to our 'experts' as it is to the reader. However, certain trends are apparent. The need for human factors in the future The need for human factors assistance should increase in the years to come because (1)
(2)
Technological sophistication will increase so much that it will significantly exceed the capability of personnel to operate and maintain systems (particularly the latter). The discrepancy between technological sophistication and personnel capability is already evident in the United States Navy. For example, one highly advanced propulsion system had to be removed from a number of ships and replaced at great expense with one less advanced because personnel did not have the expertise to utilise the former. The fact that less qualified personnel enter the military services and industrial production lines will exacerbate the problem posed by technological sophistication. Among less qualified personnel one finds women, people whose mental and/or educational qualifications are less than desired and people from developing countries. Women may be somewhat culturally deprived because their upbringing tends to reduce their contact with technology. The need for military personnel has led to the recruitment of personnel with less than a high school (leaving school) certificate, some of whom are functionally illiterate. Opportunities for human factors may expand significantly in the design of equipment for Third World people (see the December 1968 issue of Human
Factors). Changes in future human factors scope Further expansion of human factors efforts will take place in the civilian sector; the demand for human engineering of military systems will level off. Computers, office furniture, medical systems, trucks and tractors, process control systems, ships and aircraft - to name only a few; it is reasonable to hypothesise that all will be exploited by human factors more fully in the further, if not nearer, future. There may be some tentative human factors advances into the design of social systems (eg, *The author acknowledges with pleasure the contribution of R.A. Newman to the writing of this section.
The single most significant technical driving force for human factors in the next two decades will be the increasing sophistication of computer systems and the concurrent developments in artificial intelligence and 'cognitive science'. The result will be very different capabilities for systems and system hardware which will also change the functions of operators as well. It is almost a clich~ to say that computer-based systems have changed the operator's role from user to monitor and/or decision-maker. The expanded capabilities of such systems will result in the computer and software doing much of what is now considered monitoring and decision-making, in particular data reduction, the analysis of relationships and some evaluative functions. The results will probably be that future human factors design technology will have to meet new (and as yet undefined) criteria involving display content, data rates, user/user interaction and user/system interaction. These modifications will also mean changes of emphasis for the human engineer. For example, with increased automation, personnel will become system managers in the sense that operator functions will emphasise complex and creative information processing, analyses and decisionmaking rather than routine operations. Design implications will centre around the cognitive rather than psychomotor functions. With computerisation the human engineer will be concerned more about software than hardware. If systems, because of complexity, become increasingly more difficult to maintain, he will be asked to turn his attention to design for maintainability, an area most human engineers working in system development have managed to steer clear of (because of its difficulty). There have been continuing efforts - and one presumes that they will continue to be made - to bring the human engineer into the very early phases of system development, when the system is only a glint in the developer's eye and only the rough outlines of the system can be discerned conceptually. If the human engineer does get more involved in earlier system development phases, his expertise will have to emphasise much more sophisticated analytic techniques.
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New developments in modelling and simulation technology, new mathematical tools and new methods of working with time-variant dynamic variables are becoming available for application to system analysis. These may represent the next generation of system development technology in human factors.
lmplicationsfor the human engineer of the future These implications centre around the functions the human engineer will perform in future system development and his training to perform those functions. It seems unlikely that his development functions will change significantly because, ff he performs as he ideally should, he is presently involved with all behavioural aspects of the system and this will not change. The critical behavioural questions raised in system development will not change substantially with technological sophistication; they may become even more important. The training of the future human engineer should change a bit more. With computerisation one can see much more emphasis being given to mathematics and statistics, to learning about computers, how to use them, how to program them and how to use computer-aided design tools. A major area of emphasis in the training of prospective human engineers will be highly sophisticated mathematical analyses which underly the increasing sophistication of computerised systems. Many human factors specialists are not currently trained in these areas and may have difficulty communicating with the designers of such systems. Designing for the operator as system manager should require more academic training in mathematical decisionmaking and cognitive processes. It is the author's impression that universities whose human factors training programmes are well known, eg, North Carolina State University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, do heavily emphasise those areas for their graduate students and the loading will increase in the future. Fortunately an increasing number of students are entering the university Human Factors programme with a background considerably broader than one finds in the traditional academic psychology department. However, it is the current generation of human factors practitioners that will determine the course of the discipline's development in the next two decades.
Technological lag in human factors It is obvious to everyone that human factors is evolving. If one makes the assumption, as the author does, that human factors effectiveness depends upon the adequacy of its methods, one must ask whether our technology, ie, the totality of our methods, is also evolving. The answer to this question is somewhat disturbing. The author sees little evidence that human factors practitioners as a whole are concerned about methodology. If in some respects we move rapidly, in others progress is intolerably slow. To the great majority of human engineers, human factors methodology is the methodology of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The author was recently required to write a report describing analytic techniques used in system development (Meister, 1982c, in press) and found himself consulting volumes written in the early 1960s (Folley et al, 1960) because nothing newer was available or adequate. Useful descriptions of such basic (and primitive) techniques as time line analysis, operational sequence diagrams, work-
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load analysis, etc, are almost non-existent. It is even unclear to what extent these methods are actually used in development and how. It cannot be repeated sufficiently that human factors will be able to capitalise on the opportunities of the future only to the extent that its methods are appropriate to those opportunities. There are of course computerised models and methods (eg, CAFES - Boeing, 1975) but as Topmiller (1981) has pointed out there is little application of these methods, perhaps because these 'advances' do not answer the questions actually asked during system development. Beyond that, where is the quantitative, probabilistic human performance data base that many have been clamouring for for years? How well do we know the basic mechanisms of system development with which human factors technology must mesh? Why is it that we can do so little in the area of design for maintainability? As we trip bright-eyed into the future, we leave a large vacuum of unsatisfied needs behind US.
What must be done? The author has no immediate solution to the problems that have been raised in this series of articles, nor is he presumptuous enough to suggest one. As a minimum, however, human engineers can examine the issues and discuss them. Do most human engineers fred the problems discussed in these articles to be real problems? Are there things that can realistically be done to help solve them? It is remarkable that over the years there has been very little discussion by human engineers about their role in the system development process, although there is usually a vast amount of discussion about academic research questions. Human engineers themselves seem to fail to recognise adequately the tremendous significance (or potential significance) of their role. The system development process is one of the few crucial mechanisms determining (at least in part) our technological culture. Within that process only the human engineer really represents the behavioural aspects of that culture. If human engineers believe these things, then they should not merely accept the constraints (both external and internal) under which they perform. The human engineering function deserves the best efforts of its practitioners, not the least part of which should be an awareness of the larger significance of their work and a conscious attempt to improve its effectiveness.
References Boeing Corporation 1975 CAFES - Computer-aided function allocation evaluation system (Executive summary). Report DI80-18577-1, Crew Systems Technology, Boeing Aerospace C9, Seattle, Washington.
Department of Defense 1981 MIL-STD- 1472C. Human engineering design criteria for military systems, equipment and facilities. Washington, DC. Folley, J.D., et al (Eds) 1960 Human factors methods for system design. Report AIR-290-60-FR-225, American Institute for Research, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
General Accounting Office 1981 Effectiveness of US forces can be increased through improved weapon system design. Report PSAD-81-17, Washington, DC. Meister, D. 1979 The influence of government on human factors research and development. Proceedings, Human Factors Society Annual Meeting, 5-13. Meister, D. 1982a Applied Ergonomics, 13.2, 119-124. The role of human factors in system development.
Meister, D. 1982b Applied Ergonomics, 13.3. 219-223. Human factors problems and solutions. Meister, D. 1982c (in press) Behavioural inputs to the weapon system acquisition process. Report US Navy Personnel Research and Development Center, San Diego, California.
Meister, D., and Farr, D.E. 1967 Human Factors, 9.1, 71-87. The utilisation of human factors information by designers. Topmiller, D.A. 1981 Methods: Past approaches, current trends and future requirements. In Moraal, J., and Kraiss, K.F. (Eds). 'Manned systems design: Methods, equipment and application'. Plenum Publishing Corporation, New York. Van Cott, H.E, and Kinkade, R.G. (Eds) 1972 Human engineering guide to equipment design (revised edition), US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC. Wise, G. 1976 Futures, 8.5, 411-419. The accuracy of technological forecasts, 1890-1940. Woodson, W.E. 1981 Human factors design handbook, McGraw-Hill, New York.
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