An attempt is made to define the metamorphosis of the human factors area since World War II. While excellent work has been accomplished on problems relating to the detailed design of systems components, there is a significant lack of information relating to the gross problems of systems design. The need for research in this important area is emphasized. A plea is made for relating future work to the fine foundation that exists in the behavioral and biological sciences. The problems associated with one important area, space travel, are discussed from the point of view of solving them by extending investigations already completed or underway in relevant areas of the behavioral and biological sciences. The problem of applying available principles to actual design problems is discussed. Investigations that would disclose the generality of the basic principles already available would be of enormous benefit to those engaged in the application of human factors knowledge to the design of components and systems.
An effort was made to locate representative data on human activities in complex operational systems. Very little operational data were found which were suitable for our purposes. Therefore, this requirement was compromised and activity data from tests and paper and pencil analyses were used. These data were then classified by two raters according to an adopted taxonomy. It was generally concluded that where activity data have been gathered under operational conditions, they have been useful to design engineers, human factors specialists and systems analysts. It is further noted, however, that additional effort must be devoted to the development of better methods for obtaining data and corresponding criteria of human performance under operational conditions. A discussion of the taxonomy and other techniques indicated that collection of activity data should be feasible under operational conditions. In addition it is suggested that increased standardization and use of operational definition in the development of these techniques might result in improvement of their general applicability.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.