featured

Profiles in Human Factors: Dr. Julian Sanchez, Medtronic

January 25, 2011
Thumbnail image for Profiles in Human Factors: Dr. Julian Sanchez, Medtronic

This post is the first in our new series of human factors career profiles. Dr. Julian Sanchez  was kind enough to answer my questions about his job and the journey he took to get there. Dr. Sanchez received his Ph.D. in psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology and has worked in a variety of settings, from agricultural technology at Deere [...]

Read the full article →

Kitchen Taskonomy Part 1: A Guest Post by Kim Wolfinbarger

January 4, 2011
Thumbnail image for Kitchen Taskonomy Part 1: A Guest Post by Kim Wolfinbarger

January magazines arrived a month ago, full of the annual list of ideas for organizing your house, life, office, even your car. I’ve been thinking lately about how we organize our workspaces. As Pottery Barn and Ikea entrance us with their coordinated sweater bins and modern snap-together wall-mounted organizers, how often do we ask this most important question: Do our [...]

Read the full article →

“Having the Data is not enough” – Visualization Techniques

December 7, 2010

I do love good visualization. I think animations like this, accompanied by a good story, would serve us well from conference presentations to convincing industry clients. It is from the “Joy of Stats,” on the BBC (which I’m apparently not allowed to watch due to my location.)

Read the full article →

Blogging APA Division 21: “One Thing at a Time” (but over a really long time)

November 21, 2010

I held off for a while writing this post because I wanted to make sure I could include media Dr. John Senders included in his talk. I think you’ll agree it was worth the wait! At the 2010 APA convention, John W. Senders, Ph.D. presented “One Thing at a Time: From Eye Fixations (1951), to Sampling (1954), to Information Theory [...]

Read the full article →

Redesigning the airline boarding pass

November 15, 2010

Designer Tyler Thompson gets frustrated with boarding passes and attempts to redesign them.  I recently had a very similar experience with a boarding pass: my first flight was delayed and my connecting flight was taking off in minutes.  As I sprinted through the airport I glanced at my boarding pass only to stop dead in my tracks as I had [...]

Read the full article →

Color Coded Elevator Buttons – Wow!

November 4, 2010
Thumbnail image for Color Coded Elevator Buttons – Wow!

Human Factors.. it’s just common sense, right? Oh dear. Found on Robyn’s Posterous.

Read the full article →

Designing Displays for Older Adults: Chapter 1 (excerpt)

August 18, 2010

Below is the preface and excerpt of Chapter 1 from our forthcoming book.  The book is available where fine books are sold or directly from our publisher CRC Press.  Until January 31, 2011, you can get 20% off the cover price when you purchase directly from CRC Press using this link and this code: 810DE. Preface This book is focused on the [...]

Read the full article →

Update on an Academic’s Use of the iPad

June 29, 2010
Thumbnail image for Update on an Academic’s Use of the iPad

There seems to be a huge amount of interest in the use of iPads in academia as evidenced by the popularity of my last post on the iPad. This is just a follow-up post with some more app recommendations and more thoughts on how well it substitutes for my laptop after over a month of use. I recently went on [...]

Read the full article →

The Human Factors of Rock Climbing – A matter of life and death

June 25, 2010
Thumbnail image for The Human Factors of Rock Climbing – A matter of life and death

A tragedy occurred last week in West Virginia where a rock climber died apparently due to a human factors issue with her gear. This text comes from a commenter on Rockclimbing.com: The climber was Karen Feher from Midlothian Va. She climbed to the anchor of Rico Suave and clipped in direct. Her setup: She had two thin dyneema slings girth [...]

Read the full article →

iPad is everything the Kindle isn’t (for my use cases)

May 25, 2010
Thumbnail image for iPad is everything the Kindle isn’t (for my use cases)

I acquired an Apple iPad a few weeks ago and am very impressed with it. Just as background, i’m a PC person (a desktop at work, home, and a Fujitsu P1620 ultramobile tablet, all running Windows 7).  My portable computer weighs about 2.5 lbs but the iPad is a full pound lighter and the battery lasts about 10 hours. Less [...]

Read the full article →

Facebook and Privacy: A Guest Post by Kelly Caine

May 8, 2010
Thumbnail image for Facebook and Privacy: A Guest Post by Kelly Caine

Many of my friends have threatened to leave Facebook because of their concerns over privacy, but for the first time, this week one of them actually made good on the threat. In his “Dear John” letter, my friend Yohann summarized the issue: I don’t feel that I am in control of the information I share on Facebook, and of the [...]

Read the full article →