- Email: [email protected]
Human factors and information technology: responding to the challenge
Human factors and information technology: responding to the challenge NATIONAL ELECTRONICS COUNCIL Editor's note: Recommendations are given from a report* published by the UK National Electronics Council on the importance of an awareness of human factors to information technology. Ergonomists al(me ca.,mot reslmpe attitudes to technological design, according to the report, and a concerted effort is needed from every group involved. For this reason, the NEC's recommendations are addressed to government, standards bodies, manufacturers, users and educators. Taken together, the recommendations form the basis of the initiative that the report's authors believe must be taken to meet the challenge posed by information technology. Although the report was published in the context of the UK Alvey 'Advanced Information Technology' programme, its content will be of interest in all countries working with information technology. The report represents a challenge from the human factors commtmity to engineers, and as such is required reading for D/sp/ays subscribers. The journal will welcome responses and encourage debate on the subject.
£eywords: computer technology;,ergonomics; information technology;, human factors; rea~nunendations.
GOVERNMENT The importance placed by UK central government on the future development of information technology has been demonstrated by the appointment of a Minister for Information Technology and by the establishment of 1982 as 'Information Technology Year'. In addition to these two public declarations of support Government has promoted information technology through special-purpose grants to industry, the introduction of information technology within its own departments, and the formation of the Alvey Committee to advise on the scope for a collaborative research programme in information technology. That progress has been slow is emphasized by the fact that this report started life at the time of IT 82, but is published to address the Alvey Directorate.
* 'Human factors and information technology' is the report of a working party set up by the National Electronics Council under the chairmanship of Dr L D. Brown of the Medical Research Council. Other members were: Dr J.G. Axford (IBM UK Laboratories); B.M. Drake (ITT Europe); Dr K.D. Eason (Loughborough University of Technlogy); A. Gardner (Admiralty Marine Technology EstablishmenO; A.J. Greenstreet (Engineering Employers Federation); P. McMahon (Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union); D.D. O'Brien (Home Office Sciennfic Research and Development Branch); T.F.M. Stewart (System Concepts); Dr L G. Umbers (Department of Trade and Industry); P. Wilson (National Computing Centre); R.F. Yates (British Telecom Research Laboratories). Copies of the report are available, price £5.95, from the National Electronics Council, 99 Gower Street, London WCIE 6AZ, UK. 154
The Alvey Committee proposes that there should be a broadly based programme of 'Advanced Information Technology' (AIT) covering four enabling technologies: software engineering, very large scale integration, man-machine interfaces, and intelligent knowledge-based systems. The National Electronics Council supports the view that these areas are the key to future development of information technology in the country and urges that the AIT programme should, with certain shifts of emphasis, be implemented as rapidly as possible. It will be no surprise that we consider developments in man-machine interface design and software engineering to be of prime importance for the success of the AIT programme. There is little point in investing heavily in intelligent knowledge-based systems and very large scale integration if people cannot communicate efficiently with their equipment. In this regard, two aspects of the Alvey proposals were somewhat disappointing. First, the successive stages of the man-machine interface programme, the 'milestones' outlined in the Alvey report, seem to overemphasize the early development of input/output devices, as if the hardware were the interface. Clearly, the ergonomics of input/output devices should be considered throughout their design and development, to make communication between user and equipment as effective as possible. Easy-touse hardware will be useless unless equal attention is paid to the design of software to make it correspondingly easy to use. Second, the existing strengths in ergonomics in this country appear to have been overlooked in the Alvey Committee's proposals for retaining and using UK
0141-9382/84/050154-05 $03.00~) 1984Butterworth& Co (Publishers)Ltd
DISPLAYS. JULY 1984
talent. The British Psychological Society and the Ergonomics Society can offer a valuable nucleus of expertise in improving man-machine communication, as well as techniques for exploring and developing information technology hardware and software. This effort is, admittedly, insufficient to meet even current demands, and it has been fragmented in the past, to a large extent, among academic institutions and other research establishments. However, one positive outcome of the Alvey report has been the emergence of 'communities' of industrialists, educators and researchers, with expertise and vested interests in the areas identified by the Alvey Committee. Government intervention is needed - - via the Science and Engineering Research Council, for example - - for this expertise to be tapped and developed in a form that can contribute signficantly to the AIT programme. It is particularly important that these communities of human factors expertise are well represented on the Advisory Board of the AIT Directorate. For all the reasons above, we recommend that the following government bodies should take the actions specified: Central government should fully implement the main proposals of the Alvey Committee through a collaborative lJrogramme of research and development in 'Advanced Information Technology'. It should ensure that the AIT Directorate is given every assistance in tapping this country's existing ergonomics expertise in industry, academic and other research establishments. 'Advanced Information Technology' Directorate should ensure it has access to comprehensive and updated information on human factors, via adequate representation of relevant expertise on its Advisory Board. The Dirctorate should ensure that human factors are taken fully into account in the research and development of hardware produced under the AIT programme.
Department of Trade and Industry should impress upon information technology manufacturers and potential purchasers that the technology's usefulness is measured not simply by its power and complexity, but by its acceptability to customers, hence, markets must be researched thoroughly and sensitively before any product specifications are undertaken. An appropriate level of support should be provided for research and development of procedures to manage the quick and smooth introduction of new information technology systems into existing organizations. Department of Education and Science should support the contributions to the AIT programme which can and will be made via the Research Councils. It should sponsor contract research on basic ergonomics aspects of information technology from the appropriate research councils, particularly research into dialogue design and speech and language processing.
Relevant aspects of human factors should be included in courses taught at all levels of education.
DISPLAYS. JULY 1984
The Research Councils should initiate applied research on problems of man-machine communication in information technology products, and should support basic research on the information-processing and decisionmaking skills involved in the use of information technology.
Results of the research they sponsor must be adequately disseminated among ergonomists, systems designers, manufacturers and major purchasers of information technology products. Ministry of Defence should ensure that all relevant nonclassified information on information technology provided by its substantial human factors resources is made publicly available for industrial and business use. INFORMATION
T E C H N O L O G Y
MANUFACTURERS Demand for human factors expertise will grow because: 1 Technologically complex products will not produce long-term corporate profits unless they are acceptable to users with a minimum of special training. 2 Customers will become even more discriminating about usability as their experience with various forms of information technology increases. 3 Manufacturers' ability to keep or increase their current market shares will depend critically upon their ability to meet the changing social and legal requirements of those markets. 4 Participation in future markets will be determined by the level of capital committed during 1982-85 to long-range ergonomics research and development aimed at avoiding usability problems with new products. 5 Current trends in health, safety, product liability and consumer legislation are putting a premium on skills which are the hallmark of the human factors professional. Manufacturers, on the whole, have paid relatively little attention to human factors in the past, perhaps because they were unaware of the concept of ergonomic design, or because they underestimated its effect on sales, or because they equated it with higher costs. Today, the importance of human factors in product and system design is receiving much greater attention in all sectors of the information technology market, mainly because of increasing awareness among users. Purchasers and users are placing greater importance on ease of use, which has led to greater competitive pressures. A number of major suppliers have now been led to promote their products as 'ergonomically designed', 'user-friendly', or 'easy to use'. Gradually such claims are becoming justifiable. In extreme cases where they are not and where users are possibly at risk, we are seeing the emergence of regulatory pressures. Several standards-setting bodies have evolved to establish statutory requirements or guidelines for the design of IT components which may
155
be ergonomically undesirable under certain conditions of use.
of skilled operators but an integral part of many jobs, carded out on desktop terminals by staff at all levels.
For these reasons, personnel holding the following positions in manufacturing organizations are recommended to take the specified steps in order to incorporate human factors into the design of their products:
As a result, there is mounting resistance to technology which is excessively complicated, inefficient, errorprone, ill-matched to the user's work station, or difficult to maintain and enhance as the user's demands on it increase.
Senior management should ensure that research management give precedence to user requirements, not technological feasibility, in their solutions to design problems. They should also ensure that executive management give high priority to the inclusion of human factors in product design and development, and a human factors element should be budgeted for in all new design activities. Senior management should ensure that their organization adopts any guidelines on ergonomically sound design set by appropriate advisory and regulatory bodies. Marketing management should establish a panel of representative users to evaluate their organization's products under real conditions of use. They should insist that ergonomically sound features be incorporated into their company's current and future products and should emphasize those good ergonomic features in all promotional activities. Unergonomic features should be rejected. Brochures and other sales materials should detail each product's ergonomic features. Design and development management should institute a vetting procedure to evaluate all products for their consistency with ergonomics principles. Their staff should be made fully aware of ergonomics issues, through courses, textbooks and in-house training. Resources should be set aside for each new design project to meet the costs of incorporating human factors into the design.
CORPORATE USERS Many computer systems installed during the past 20 years have failed to take into account the actual capabilities and characteristics of their users. Typically, such inferior systems have been inflexible or have produced vast quantities of information in unmanageable formats. As a result, many organizations have been forced to spend an unreasonable and increasing proportion of their computing budgets on maintaining and enhancing their systems. Such products have, understandably, been heavily and constantly criticized by their users. Many of the problems users encounter can be attributed to the inadequate attention paid to human factors during the design and enhancement of computer systems. These inadequacies have generally been tolerated or worked around, since relatively few personnel in isolated parts of an organization have been involved with the system. This picture is changing rapidly, information technology has the potential to extend into every part of an organization, and computing is no longer the preserve 156
For these reasons, personnel holding the following positions are recommended to take the specified actions: Management services should ensure that their organization's systems analysts and designers are fully conversant with the objectives and methods of ergonomics and are capable of applying applying them, by arranging courses and workshops and providing relevant literature. In-house or external experts should ensure that users' requirements are identified and met adequately in the process of system design and development. Management services should identify and implement appropriate ergonomics standards in the design of jobs, human-computer dialogues, information presentation, documentation and work Stations within the company. It should be recognized that new systems which will entail changes in the organization's hierarchy and established practices will require supervision by human factors experts during their introduction if disruptions of production are to be minimized or avoided. Management services should sustain a high level of awareness of ergonomics issues among staff, and should develop in-house methods of evaluating and tackling their problems in using information technology. They should encourage all users of IT systems, particularly members of the general public, to register their opinions about system design.
Systems designers should involve potential users of their systems in the design process and should familiarize themselves with the professional techniques for accomplishing this. They should implement all appropriate ergonomics guidelines for job design, dialogue design, documentation, information processing and work station design, and should ensure that implementation programmes offer adequate facilities for training and familiarizing new users, and that management are committed to releasing staff for this purpose. Systems designers should promote general awareness of ergonomics issues among users, and should develop methods of collecting and dealing satisfactorily with users' comments. INDIVIDUAL USERS Individuals may purchase and use information technology as a matter of personal choice or they may have DISPLAYS. JULY 1984
it provided for their use at work. In either case, they should examine the technology critically for its compatibility with their requirements and skills and for its usability over the normal working day. They should keep the following objectives in mind: 1 The need to report to manufacturers and employers any shortcomings in the design of their systems, particularly as systems become increasingly powerful and complex. In the absence of such information, technology which is difficult to understand and use may be tolerated until it becomes too complex and costly for employers to replace. 2 The need to identify and report any unhealthy or unsafe working practices which result from unthinking incorporation of information technology components into unsuitable work areas - - for example, positioning VDUs and keyboards on unsuitable furniture or failing to modify inappropriate room lighting when VDUs are introduced.
STANDARDS-SETTING BODIES As information technology users and designers have become increasingly aware of the importance of human factors, a demand has grown for ergonomics standards against which equipment and its performance can be judged. Setting such standards is not an easy task, given the complexity and wide variety of technology available, the multitude of ways in which it can be installed and used, and the enormous variation in physical and mental abilities of its users. However, a good deal of research in the field is beginning to provide certain objective data on which human factors regulations and guidelines could be based. As a result, research papers, guidelines and similar documents have been published by responsible authorities, such as the Health and Safety Executive, various trades unions, and numerous professional institutions and associations. From this evidence, it seems clear that, in certain cases, standards of information technology design and use are both desirable and practicable. These need not take the form of statutory regulations. Codes of practice and similar guidelines would represent a major step forward in the provision of basic information on human factors to systems designers and installers. They would also be invaluable to manufacturers who are increasingly having to ensure that their exports meet statutory international requirements. In addition, clearly defined regulations and codes of practice could be used to resolve many of the conflicts between management and staff which arise when new systems have to be installed. For these reasons, it is recommended that the Health and Safety Executive should liaise with the British Standards Institution to produce and maintain definitive codes of practice for those (as yet few) ergonomics aspects of information technology where verifiable evidence of hazards to users exists. The HSE should spon-
DISPLAYS. J U L Y 1984
sor and support research on those ergonomics issues in information technology where there is clear evidence of a problem but where no verifiable evidence yet exists on which to frame regulations or codes of practice, and should aim to develop flexible codes of good practice and to avoid unnecessarily rigid statutory regulations.
EDUCATORS Teachers at the secondary and, more important still, the tertiary level of education have a vital role to play in the development of good ergonomics practices in the design and use of information technology. An important part of their work is to be aware of the problems people have in assimilating, restructuring, storing, processing, retrieving and presenting information. It is in these areas that many information technology systems have proved incompatible with their users. Educators, therefore, should be well placed to advise on the range of strategies and tactics people adopt when handling information. This advice could be invaluable to designers of both hardware and software. At the tertiary level, educators should be able to translate their personal experience directly into relevant research and consultancy advice. Since the information technlogy used in teaching courses may well offer many students their first contact with the new technology, educators (at least in the near future) will also have a valuable role to play in making students aware of the importance of sound ergonomic design. Currently the majority of the population could be classifted as non-expert users of information technology, however, there will be a dramatic change in the awareness and skills of the population over the next ten years or so, and the major responsibility for this change will be with primary and secondary schoolteachers. A major problem for educators is keeping up to date with current issues, since new technology is developing at an increasingly rapid pace. This is a problem for educators in human factors subjects in particular, where major changes in emphasis and direction have occurred in recent years. Much of the earlier knowledge and experience of older human factors specialists is now irrelevant to the new technology, and it will require a substantial effort from individual researchers and teachers if the subject is to be taught appropriately in the future. Problems in the design and use of information technology both now and in the foreseeable future, are likely to fall mainly within the fields of psychology and 'cognitive ergonomics' - - that is matching the demands which hardware and software place on users' mental capabilties. Educators must adapt to this change. Certainly, the pool of relevant ergonomics expertise in education is currently inadequate to meet present and likely future demands. This gap cannot be filled without substantial intervention by Government, acting collaboratively with education authorities and teaching staff at all levels.
157
For these reasons, the following educators are recommended to take the actions specified:
Human factors academics should update their own knowledge and skills regularly and ensure that their courses keep abreast of developments in this fastmoving field. Their work should have direct relevance to practical concerns, preferably by collaborating with manufacturers and users of information technology in the design of new systems. They should communicate the results of their research in an accessible and usable form, to appropriate audiences. They should help to incorporate relevant ergonomics teaching into all courses in engineering or systems analysis and design or any courses involving IT components taught at their institutions, and should urge Government to collaborate in substantial expansion of ergonomics technology resources related to IT over the next five to ten years. Design and engineering academics should make relevant human factors instruction an integral part of their courses and should press for the appropriate resources to allow any additional human factors teaching to be incorporated within their courses. They should support any moves towards a qualification in ergonomics becoming a membership requirement of any professional technical institution to which they belong.
Systems analysis academics should ensure that ergonomics plays an integral part in the systems development methods which they teach, particularly in relation to software and job design. Management science academics should emphasize in their courses the importance of participative design processes that give due prominence to users of information technology, and the improvements in productivity to be gained from high standards of IT human factors. Schoolteachers of computing subjects should emphasize in their courses the importance of ergonomically sound design for the ease and efficiency of computing, and should endeavour to teach practical courses on the application of ergonomics to computers and computing systems. They should liaise with well-informed manufacturers to help design and develop computers for educational purposes. Training instructors should update their knowledge and experience of current ergonomics concerns and highlight them in their courses. HUMAN FACTORS PRACTITIONERS The rapid development of information technology has presented the human factors profession with a tremendous challenge. The immediate need is for design solutions to problems of mismatching between users and technology within existing systems. Equally urgently, ergonomists are needed to collaborate in new systems which will have human factors principles built into their design. Currently, manufacturers appear somewhat compla-
158
cent about the usability of their products. This may reflect a general lack of awareness of the human factors issues relevant to new technology. Certainly most of the interest in the subject has come from younger people in new industries or organizations who have little specific knowledge of ergonomics, but who recognize the need for it in the design and marketing of their products. Interest is commonly generated by specific reports of users' problems with a product, by a decline in sales, or by legal actions relating to product liability. This situation may change rapidly as manufacturers begin to appreciate that prevention of human factors problems is better than cure; it costs less in the long term and ensures customers' continued support for their organization's products. In some respects human factors practitioners are not served well by existing educational provisions for acquiring the knowledge and skills they need. Apart from being in short supply, university and polytechnic courses in ergonomics often teach an experimental approach to design solutions. This may be appropriate for future researchers into the subject, but it is quite inappropriate to the problem-solving methods available to ergonomists in business and industry. The human factors profession must therefore not be too complacent about its own ability to meet present and future needs for the skills and techniques appropriate to the practice of its subject. For these reasons, the following actions are recommended:
Human factors practitioners should press for an increase in the teaching of their skills, with greater emphasis on psychological issues and cognitive ergonomics. They should ensure that this teaching is more appropriately geared to effective problem solving and system design in industrial contexts, and should publicize their skills and services in a way which allows employers and clients to perceive the critical differences between human factors expertise and the skills offered by other professions in relation to IT. Design processes should be evolved which are responsive to the complexities of developing high technology products and systems. Practitioners should raise the general level of awareness of ergonomics within organizations and press for it to be valued appropriately in the design and development of information technology systems. They should report their successes (and failures) in a manner which allows new findings to be incorporated into the corpus of human factors knowledge, and should bring to the attention of standards-setting bodies the need for new or modified codes of practice relating to human factors. The Ergonomics Society should assess future research requirements for human factors in IT and communicate them to the relevant research-funding bodies. The Society should co-ordinate interested members and provide a forum for discussion and debate on IT issues.
DISPLAYS. JULY 1984
£eywords: computer technology;,ergonomics; information technology;, human factors; rea~nunendations.
GOVERNMENT The importance placed by UK central government on the future development of information technology has been demonstrated by the appointment of a Minister for Information Technology and by the establishment of 1982 as 'Information Technology Year'. In addition to these two public declarations of support Government has promoted information technology through special-purpose grants to industry, the introduction of information technology within its own departments, and the formation of the Alvey Committee to advise on the scope for a collaborative research programme in information technology. That progress has been slow is emphasized by the fact that this report started life at the time of IT 82, but is published to address the Alvey Directorate.
* 'Human factors and information technology' is the report of a working party set up by the National Electronics Council under the chairmanship of Dr L D. Brown of the Medical Research Council. Other members were: Dr J.G. Axford (IBM UK Laboratories); B.M. Drake (ITT Europe); Dr K.D. Eason (Loughborough University of Technlogy); A. Gardner (Admiralty Marine Technology EstablishmenO; A.J. Greenstreet (Engineering Employers Federation); P. McMahon (Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union); D.D. O'Brien (Home Office Sciennfic Research and Development Branch); T.F.M. Stewart (System Concepts); Dr L G. Umbers (Department of Trade and Industry); P. Wilson (National Computing Centre); R.F. Yates (British Telecom Research Laboratories). Copies of the report are available, price £5.95, from the National Electronics Council, 99 Gower Street, London WCIE 6AZ, UK. 154
The Alvey Committee proposes that there should be a broadly based programme of 'Advanced Information Technology' (AIT) covering four enabling technologies: software engineering, very large scale integration, man-machine interfaces, and intelligent knowledge-based systems. The National Electronics Council supports the view that these areas are the key to future development of information technology in the country and urges that the AIT programme should, with certain shifts of emphasis, be implemented as rapidly as possible. It will be no surprise that we consider developments in man-machine interface design and software engineering to be of prime importance for the success of the AIT programme. There is little point in investing heavily in intelligent knowledge-based systems and very large scale integration if people cannot communicate efficiently with their equipment. In this regard, two aspects of the Alvey proposals were somewhat disappointing. First, the successive stages of the man-machine interface programme, the 'milestones' outlined in the Alvey report, seem to overemphasize the early development of input/output devices, as if the hardware were the interface. Clearly, the ergonomics of input/output devices should be considered throughout their design and development, to make communication between user and equipment as effective as possible. Easy-touse hardware will be useless unless equal attention is paid to the design of software to make it correspondingly easy to use. Second, the existing strengths in ergonomics in this country appear to have been overlooked in the Alvey Committee's proposals for retaining and using UK
0141-9382/84/050154-05 $03.00~) 1984Butterworth& Co (Publishers)Ltd
DISPLAYS. JULY 1984
talent. The British Psychological Society and the Ergonomics Society can offer a valuable nucleus of expertise in improving man-machine communication, as well as techniques for exploring and developing information technology hardware and software. This effort is, admittedly, insufficient to meet even current demands, and it has been fragmented in the past, to a large extent, among academic institutions and other research establishments. However, one positive outcome of the Alvey report has been the emergence of 'communities' of industrialists, educators and researchers, with expertise and vested interests in the areas identified by the Alvey Committee. Government intervention is needed - - via the Science and Engineering Research Council, for example - - for this expertise to be tapped and developed in a form that can contribute signficantly to the AIT programme. It is particularly important that these communities of human factors expertise are well represented on the Advisory Board of the AIT Directorate. For all the reasons above, we recommend that the following government bodies should take the actions specified: Central government should fully implement the main proposals of the Alvey Committee through a collaborative lJrogramme of research and development in 'Advanced Information Technology'. It should ensure that the AIT Directorate is given every assistance in tapping this country's existing ergonomics expertise in industry, academic and other research establishments. 'Advanced Information Technology' Directorate should ensure it has access to comprehensive and updated information on human factors, via adequate representation of relevant expertise on its Advisory Board. The Dirctorate should ensure that human factors are taken fully into account in the research and development of hardware produced under the AIT programme.
Department of Trade and Industry should impress upon information technology manufacturers and potential purchasers that the technology's usefulness is measured not simply by its power and complexity, but by its acceptability to customers, hence, markets must be researched thoroughly and sensitively before any product specifications are undertaken. An appropriate level of support should be provided for research and development of procedures to manage the quick and smooth introduction of new information technology systems into existing organizations. Department of Education and Science should support the contributions to the AIT programme which can and will be made via the Research Councils. It should sponsor contract research on basic ergonomics aspects of information technology from the appropriate research councils, particularly research into dialogue design and speech and language processing.
Relevant aspects of human factors should be included in courses taught at all levels of education.
DISPLAYS. JULY 1984
The Research Councils should initiate applied research on problems of man-machine communication in information technology products, and should support basic research on the information-processing and decisionmaking skills involved in the use of information technology.
Results of the research they sponsor must be adequately disseminated among ergonomists, systems designers, manufacturers and major purchasers of information technology products. Ministry of Defence should ensure that all relevant nonclassified information on information technology provided by its substantial human factors resources is made publicly available for industrial and business use. INFORMATION
T E C H N O L O G Y
MANUFACTURERS Demand for human factors expertise will grow because: 1 Technologically complex products will not produce long-term corporate profits unless they are acceptable to users with a minimum of special training. 2 Customers will become even more discriminating about usability as their experience with various forms of information technology increases. 3 Manufacturers' ability to keep or increase their current market shares will depend critically upon their ability to meet the changing social and legal requirements of those markets. 4 Participation in future markets will be determined by the level of capital committed during 1982-85 to long-range ergonomics research and development aimed at avoiding usability problems with new products. 5 Current trends in health, safety, product liability and consumer legislation are putting a premium on skills which are the hallmark of the human factors professional. Manufacturers, on the whole, have paid relatively little attention to human factors in the past, perhaps because they were unaware of the concept of ergonomic design, or because they underestimated its effect on sales, or because they equated it with higher costs. Today, the importance of human factors in product and system design is receiving much greater attention in all sectors of the information technology market, mainly because of increasing awareness among users. Purchasers and users are placing greater importance on ease of use, which has led to greater competitive pressures. A number of major suppliers have now been led to promote their products as 'ergonomically designed', 'user-friendly', or 'easy to use'. Gradually such claims are becoming justifiable. In extreme cases where they are not and where users are possibly at risk, we are seeing the emergence of regulatory pressures. Several standards-setting bodies have evolved to establish statutory requirements or guidelines for the design of IT components which may
155
be ergonomically undesirable under certain conditions of use.
of skilled operators but an integral part of many jobs, carded out on desktop terminals by staff at all levels.
For these reasons, personnel holding the following positions in manufacturing organizations are recommended to take the specified steps in order to incorporate human factors into the design of their products:
As a result, there is mounting resistance to technology which is excessively complicated, inefficient, errorprone, ill-matched to the user's work station, or difficult to maintain and enhance as the user's demands on it increase.
Senior management should ensure that research management give precedence to user requirements, not technological feasibility, in their solutions to design problems. They should also ensure that executive management give high priority to the inclusion of human factors in product design and development, and a human factors element should be budgeted for in all new design activities. Senior management should ensure that their organization adopts any guidelines on ergonomically sound design set by appropriate advisory and regulatory bodies. Marketing management should establish a panel of representative users to evaluate their organization's products under real conditions of use. They should insist that ergonomically sound features be incorporated into their company's current and future products and should emphasize those good ergonomic features in all promotional activities. Unergonomic features should be rejected. Brochures and other sales materials should detail each product's ergonomic features. Design and development management should institute a vetting procedure to evaluate all products for their consistency with ergonomics principles. Their staff should be made fully aware of ergonomics issues, through courses, textbooks and in-house training. Resources should be set aside for each new design project to meet the costs of incorporating human factors into the design.
CORPORATE USERS Many computer systems installed during the past 20 years have failed to take into account the actual capabilities and characteristics of their users. Typically, such inferior systems have been inflexible or have produced vast quantities of information in unmanageable formats. As a result, many organizations have been forced to spend an unreasonable and increasing proportion of their computing budgets on maintaining and enhancing their systems. Such products have, understandably, been heavily and constantly criticized by their users. Many of the problems users encounter can be attributed to the inadequate attention paid to human factors during the design and enhancement of computer systems. These inadequacies have generally been tolerated or worked around, since relatively few personnel in isolated parts of an organization have been involved with the system. This picture is changing rapidly, information technology has the potential to extend into every part of an organization, and computing is no longer the preserve 156
For these reasons, personnel holding the following positions are recommended to take the specified actions: Management services should ensure that their organization's systems analysts and designers are fully conversant with the objectives and methods of ergonomics and are capable of applying applying them, by arranging courses and workshops and providing relevant literature. In-house or external experts should ensure that users' requirements are identified and met adequately in the process of system design and development. Management services should identify and implement appropriate ergonomics standards in the design of jobs, human-computer dialogues, information presentation, documentation and work Stations within the company. It should be recognized that new systems which will entail changes in the organization's hierarchy and established practices will require supervision by human factors experts during their introduction if disruptions of production are to be minimized or avoided. Management services should sustain a high level of awareness of ergonomics issues among staff, and should develop in-house methods of evaluating and tackling their problems in using information technology. They should encourage all users of IT systems, particularly members of the general public, to register their opinions about system design.
Systems designers should involve potential users of their systems in the design process and should familiarize themselves with the professional techniques for accomplishing this. They should implement all appropriate ergonomics guidelines for job design, dialogue design, documentation, information processing and work station design, and should ensure that implementation programmes offer adequate facilities for training and familiarizing new users, and that management are committed to releasing staff for this purpose. Systems designers should promote general awareness of ergonomics issues among users, and should develop methods of collecting and dealing satisfactorily with users' comments. INDIVIDUAL USERS Individuals may purchase and use information technology as a matter of personal choice or they may have DISPLAYS. JULY 1984
it provided for their use at work. In either case, they should examine the technology critically for its compatibility with their requirements and skills and for its usability over the normal working day. They should keep the following objectives in mind: 1 The need to report to manufacturers and employers any shortcomings in the design of their systems, particularly as systems become increasingly powerful and complex. In the absence of such information, technology which is difficult to understand and use may be tolerated until it becomes too complex and costly for employers to replace. 2 The need to identify and report any unhealthy or unsafe working practices which result from unthinking incorporation of information technology components into unsuitable work areas - - for example, positioning VDUs and keyboards on unsuitable furniture or failing to modify inappropriate room lighting when VDUs are introduced.
STANDARDS-SETTING BODIES As information technology users and designers have become increasingly aware of the importance of human factors, a demand has grown for ergonomics standards against which equipment and its performance can be judged. Setting such standards is not an easy task, given the complexity and wide variety of technology available, the multitude of ways in which it can be installed and used, and the enormous variation in physical and mental abilities of its users. However, a good deal of research in the field is beginning to provide certain objective data on which human factors regulations and guidelines could be based. As a result, research papers, guidelines and similar documents have been published by responsible authorities, such as the Health and Safety Executive, various trades unions, and numerous professional institutions and associations. From this evidence, it seems clear that, in certain cases, standards of information technology design and use are both desirable and practicable. These need not take the form of statutory regulations. Codes of practice and similar guidelines would represent a major step forward in the provision of basic information on human factors to systems designers and installers. They would also be invaluable to manufacturers who are increasingly having to ensure that their exports meet statutory international requirements. In addition, clearly defined regulations and codes of practice could be used to resolve many of the conflicts between management and staff which arise when new systems have to be installed. For these reasons, it is recommended that the Health and Safety Executive should liaise with the British Standards Institution to produce and maintain definitive codes of practice for those (as yet few) ergonomics aspects of information technology where verifiable evidence of hazards to users exists. The HSE should spon-
DISPLAYS. J U L Y 1984
sor and support research on those ergonomics issues in information technology where there is clear evidence of a problem but where no verifiable evidence yet exists on which to frame regulations or codes of practice, and should aim to develop flexible codes of good practice and to avoid unnecessarily rigid statutory regulations.
EDUCATORS Teachers at the secondary and, more important still, the tertiary level of education have a vital role to play in the development of good ergonomics practices in the design and use of information technology. An important part of their work is to be aware of the problems people have in assimilating, restructuring, storing, processing, retrieving and presenting information. It is in these areas that many information technology systems have proved incompatible with their users. Educators, therefore, should be well placed to advise on the range of strategies and tactics people adopt when handling information. This advice could be invaluable to designers of both hardware and software. At the tertiary level, educators should be able to translate their personal experience directly into relevant research and consultancy advice. Since the information technlogy used in teaching courses may well offer many students their first contact with the new technology, educators (at least in the near future) will also have a valuable role to play in making students aware of the importance of sound ergonomic design. Currently the majority of the population could be classifted as non-expert users of information technology, however, there will be a dramatic change in the awareness and skills of the population over the next ten years or so, and the major responsibility for this change will be with primary and secondary schoolteachers. A major problem for educators is keeping up to date with current issues, since new technology is developing at an increasingly rapid pace. This is a problem for educators in human factors subjects in particular, where major changes in emphasis and direction have occurred in recent years. Much of the earlier knowledge and experience of older human factors specialists is now irrelevant to the new technology, and it will require a substantial effort from individual researchers and teachers if the subject is to be taught appropriately in the future. Problems in the design and use of information technology both now and in the foreseeable future, are likely to fall mainly within the fields of psychology and 'cognitive ergonomics' - - that is matching the demands which hardware and software place on users' mental capabilties. Educators must adapt to this change. Certainly, the pool of relevant ergonomics expertise in education is currently inadequate to meet present and likely future demands. This gap cannot be filled without substantial intervention by Government, acting collaboratively with education authorities and teaching staff at all levels.
157
For these reasons, the following educators are recommended to take the actions specified:
Human factors academics should update their own knowledge and skills regularly and ensure that their courses keep abreast of developments in this fastmoving field. Their work should have direct relevance to practical concerns, preferably by collaborating with manufacturers and users of information technology in the design of new systems. They should communicate the results of their research in an accessible and usable form, to appropriate audiences. They should help to incorporate relevant ergonomics teaching into all courses in engineering or systems analysis and design or any courses involving IT components taught at their institutions, and should urge Government to collaborate in substantial expansion of ergonomics technology resources related to IT over the next five to ten years. Design and engineering academics should make relevant human factors instruction an integral part of their courses and should press for the appropriate resources to allow any additional human factors teaching to be incorporated within their courses. They should support any moves towards a qualification in ergonomics becoming a membership requirement of any professional technical institution to which they belong.
Systems analysis academics should ensure that ergonomics plays an integral part in the systems development methods which they teach, particularly in relation to software and job design. Management science academics should emphasize in their courses the importance of participative design processes that give due prominence to users of information technology, and the improvements in productivity to be gained from high standards of IT human factors. Schoolteachers of computing subjects should emphasize in their courses the importance of ergonomically sound design for the ease and efficiency of computing, and should endeavour to teach practical courses on the application of ergonomics to computers and computing systems. They should liaise with well-informed manufacturers to help design and develop computers for educational purposes. Training instructors should update their knowledge and experience of current ergonomics concerns and highlight them in their courses. HUMAN FACTORS PRACTITIONERS The rapid development of information technology has presented the human factors profession with a tremendous challenge. The immediate need is for design solutions to problems of mismatching between users and technology within existing systems. Equally urgently, ergonomists are needed to collaborate in new systems which will have human factors principles built into their design. Currently, manufacturers appear somewhat compla-
158
cent about the usability of their products. This may reflect a general lack of awareness of the human factors issues relevant to new technology. Certainly most of the interest in the subject has come from younger people in new industries or organizations who have little specific knowledge of ergonomics, but who recognize the need for it in the design and marketing of their products. Interest is commonly generated by specific reports of users' problems with a product, by a decline in sales, or by legal actions relating to product liability. This situation may change rapidly as manufacturers begin to appreciate that prevention of human factors problems is better than cure; it costs less in the long term and ensures customers' continued support for their organization's products. In some respects human factors practitioners are not served well by existing educational provisions for acquiring the knowledge and skills they need. Apart from being in short supply, university and polytechnic courses in ergonomics often teach an experimental approach to design solutions. This may be appropriate for future researchers into the subject, but it is quite inappropriate to the problem-solving methods available to ergonomists in business and industry. The human factors profession must therefore not be too complacent about its own ability to meet present and future needs for the skills and techniques appropriate to the practice of its subject. For these reasons, the following actions are recommended:
Human factors practitioners should press for an increase in the teaching of their skills, with greater emphasis on psychological issues and cognitive ergonomics. They should ensure that this teaching is more appropriately geared to effective problem solving and system design in industrial contexts, and should publicize their skills and services in a way which allows employers and clients to perceive the critical differences between human factors expertise and the skills offered by other professions in relation to IT. Design processes should be evolved which are responsive to the complexities of developing high technology products and systems. Practitioners should raise the general level of awareness of ergonomics within organizations and press for it to be valued appropriately in the design and development of information technology systems. They should report their successes (and failures) in a manner which allows new findings to be incorporated into the corpus of human factors knowledge, and should bring to the attention of standards-setting bodies the need for new or modified codes of practice relating to human factors. The Ergonomics Society should assess future research requirements for human factors in IT and communicate them to the relevant research-funding bodies. The Society should co-ordinate interested members and provide a forum for discussion and debate on IT issues.
DISPLAYS. JULY 1984