Human Factors / Ergonomics (HFE)

In my professional working life, I was employed as both a Research Psychologist (CPsychol, AFBPsS) and Human Factors Specialist (CErgHF) - the exact job titles varied. I worked on numerous technical projects (in Defence and Air Traffic Control) and a selection of my publications can be found on ResearchGate (obviously, only those suitable for public release). Below are a few miscellaneous snippets concerning aspects of that frequently misunderstood scientific discipline, and my involvement in it. Although I officially retired in 2021, I have remained interested in the science, even doing the occasional bit of consultancy work if an opportunity arises, oh, which it did in 2025...

Scope of Human Factors

Diagrammatic illustration of the scope of Human Factors. The left-hand 'cog' shows the 6 main technical areas:

People Characteristics
Equipment Design
Working Environment
Tasks & Functions
Social & Organisational; and
Training & Development.

The right-hand cog shows the 6 main factors of human performance.

Acknowledgement The diagram is a variation of the EUROCONTROL Human Factors 'Gearbox' (circa 2008), which distinguished six System level factors interacting with six Human Performance level factors. That Gearbox was itself based on an earlier Human Factors 'Pie' diagram (circa 2002).

Human Factors and UX

Diagrammatic illustration of the meaning of User Experience (UX) viewed from the perspectives of four engineering professions:

Human Factors (HF) Engineer
User Interface (UI) Designer
UX Engineer / Researcher
Software (SW) Engineer / Developer

As can be seen, there are considerable overlaps between the four, and hence the confusion in understanding or distinguishing between their respective areas of concern. Hence also the reason why UX professionals are sometimes said to be taking over HF or at least encroaching on what HF has traditionally regarded as its domain.

The HuFIMS website is not in the public domain, but is accessible via the Defence Gateway, which only requires a simple registration.

HuFIMS

Back in 2015-16 I was part of a small industry team that developed some new Human Factors technical guidance for the UK Ministry of Defence, specifically Defence Standard 00-251, and Joint Service Publication 912. It also had a new website to go with it called Human Factors Integration Management System (HuFIMS), which yours truly prototyped. In fact, I even came up with the catchy acronym. The final website hosted on the MOD 'KiD' website (see opposite) was not of course formatted exactly in the same way, but hey, I laid the foundations! Last time I visited HuFIMS, I was pleased to see that my original list of FAQs had hardly been changed including, Isn't Human Factors just common sense?

Human Error

The saying "to err is human" is well known and the term 'human error' perhaps gives the impression that it covers all unsafe acts. However, human error is the result of a mixture of factors. As Professor Reason wrote, human errors take many different forms, have different psychological origins, and require different methods of management. The types of human error that are typically distinguished (but not everyone agrees) are: slips, lapses, mistakes and violations .

I produced the first version of the table opposite in the late 1990s, while working at DERA. I was the lead researcher on a "Proposal to develop a concept and taxonomy for human error in ATM" (submitted to EUROCONTROL). The proposal was unsuccessful, but I did usefully cross paths with Professors Neville Moray and Patrick Hudson who were part of our project team. I vaguely recall that I constructed the table based on something Prof. Hudson had written, which I then elaborated with the 'work domain' examples, but it's a long time ago!

Ps. The research output from the team that won the EUROCONTROL project was called HERA.

Decent Work

DOWNLOAD Decent_Work.pdf

In 2025, the IEA on behalf of the International Labour Organization (ILO) set up a small international writing team to prepare a background report for a proposed new ILO Convention on Ergonomics/Human Factors. I was honoured to be part of the writing team and the report was duly produced at the end of same year. While waiting for the report to be formally published, one of the writing team produced a presentation about it...