From the category archives:

ergonomics

Complex Clickers in Class

by Richard Pak
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I will be teaching general psychology to a large undergraduate class this Fall.  I had planned on using the “Clicker” to encourage interaction with students (link to company that makes them, wikipedia page that describes them).  They are essentially remote controls that allow the instructor to record votes from students.  For example, I could present a multiple choice question to [...]

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Making virtual worlds more accessible – a new context area for Human Factors

by Anne McLaughlin
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The Consumerist blog (of Consumer Reports) posted an article on the state of California suing Sony because their online Playstation services were not accessibly designed.
Quoted from The Consumerist post:
At the crux of the plaintiff’s failed case was their contention that, because PlayStation allows people all over the world to connect and play games together via their now-repaired PlayStation Network, that [...]

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Human Factors in the World’s First “Purpose-Built” Law Enforcement Vehicle

by Richard Pak
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In the near future, you may see one of these cars in your rear-view mirror. They are new purpose-built law enforcement vehicles that will appear in 2012. I found this press release while searching for something else on the web. The cockpit was designed with human factors input from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI):

[...]

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Human Factors and Healthcare: The older patient & nurse

by Richard Pak
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I‘ve recently published two papers on the topic of human factors and healthcare. Each paper covers a different “stakeholder”: the older patient and the nurse.  The first paper is available for free but the second paper (a collaboration with my architect colleague Dina Battisto) is available at your local library (or you can request a PDF reprint from me).
Pak, R., [...]

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HFBlog at HFES 2009 in San Antonio

by Richard Pak
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We were at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual conference in San Antonio.  This post is merely here to collect our six-part posts on various talks.  These only scratch the surface of what was presented.

Part 1:  The Mechanical Bull
Part 2:  Eliciting knowledge structures
Part 3:  Health, Internet, and ROBOTS!
Part 4:  Hearing and understanding
Part 5:  Rich gets lost (Automation/Trust)
Part 6:  More [...]

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Dangers of Automatic Windows

by Anne McLaughlin
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Recently I posted on some potential human factors problems caused by Toyota’s design of their floor mats. For this post, I would like to compliment Toyota on their automatic power windows. The windows can be lowered fully and automatically by one quick press on the button. However, to be raised, the lever on the button must be continuously raised [...]

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Solving Beer Estimation Difficulties

by Anne McLaughlin
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The subtle change in the diameter of a glass can hide large changes in volume. Unfortunately for us, we’re terrible at estimating this, even when we logically know it to be true. For example, a few millimeters at the top of a pint glass equals an ounce of liquid, while the same height measure at the bottom of the [...]

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HFES Conference in San Antonio, Part 1

by Richard Pak

Anne and I just got back from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society conference held in San Antonio.  We plan on posting some snippets of posters/talks that we found interesting in an upcoming post.  But in the mean time, here is a panorama of the view from our hotel.

Being in San Antonio, TX, we also visited a Cowboy bar complete [...]

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Error Leads to Radiation Overdose

by Richard Pak
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Not much detail but the LATimes is reporting that:
“There was a misunderstanding about an embedded default setting applied by the machine . . . ,” officials at the renowned Los Angeles hospital said in a written statement that provided no other details about how the error occurred. “As a result, the use of this protocol resulted in a higher than [...]

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Results of long-term educational use of Kindle

by Richard Pak
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The Kindle e-book reader has great promise, especially for students.  Who wouldn’t want to trade in a bunch of heavy books for a slim electronic device?  Amazon partnered with Princeton to see how students would interact with the device.  The results are not good.  The student’s comments sound vaguely familiar to my own experiences.  The Kindle is great as a [...]

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Consumer Reports story on Automobile Ergonomics

by Anne McLaughlin

Zoom over to the Consumer Reports car blog for a case study of accessibility by Gabe Shenhar .

Driving with an injury: Features that can ease the pain (excerpted):

…I have come to a new appreciation, surveying our vehicle test fleet, of what everyday life must be like for people with physical challenges or limited mobility.
For me right now, the key is [...]

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Augmented Reality for Everyone

by Richard Pak

There have been many recent examples of consumer friendly augmented reality applications for smart phone users.  I remember reading about augmented reality research over a decade ago (in an HCI class) and remembering how bulky, expensive, experimental, and out-of-reach it seemed back then.  The systems back then required head-mounted displays and were physically attached to cameras and large computers.  Now [...]

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The Tactile Thinkpad: More Laptop Redesign from Lenovo

by Anne McLaughlin
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I posted earlier on the innovative data collection Lenovo did for a keyboard redesign. A new post on DesignMatters details the design and user testing of a new touch pad using tactile feedback.
Designers must often work within constraints induced by other portions of their product. In this case, the touchpad had to be flush with the hand rest of the [...]

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Heatmapping the Keyboard

by Anne McLaughlin

David Hill over at DesignMatters has an excellent post on how Lenovo collected data for a keyboard redesign.  Below is an excerpt, but please visit his site for the entire tale.
We thought that taking an updated look at key frequency of use would be a good place to start in order to uncover innovation opportunity. Things do change over the years. [...]

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Invisible Lines and Laundry Detergent

by Anne McLaughlin

Consumer Reports tackled a pet peeve of mine: the invisible fill lines for laundry detergent. Most of you are probably using too much.. I finally took a sharpie to mine. Some excerpts from the Consumer Reports article:
“If the lines aren’t clear or are hard to see, it’s easy to overdose and use too much detergent,” says Pat Slaven, a program [...]

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Watch out for Un-Equalsteppings!

by Richard Pak

Reader Joe C. sent in this unusual warning on a door.
It was on the entry door to one of the screens at a local cinema. The un-equalsteppings just turned out to be a slope! Not sure why they couldn’t of just told me it was a slope.

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