Human factors and ergonomics focuses on designing the world to better accommodate people.

Human Factors, as the definition goes, “refer to environmental, organisational and job factors, and human and individual characteristics,” (Health and Safety Executive, 2005) and these factors/characteristics can affect people’s health and safety. In other words, human factors is consist of but not limited to physical, cognitive, psychomotor, behavioral and usability categories, in order to improve humans’ safety and productivity. The design and engineering part, as most people have known of, is in fact just an application of the Human factors study and research. HF itself is much more than that.

What about Ergonomics? Is it similar to Human Factors? According to Merriam-Webster, is “an applied science concerned with designing and arranging things people use so that the people and things interact most efficiently and safely.” Looking into the dictionary, it seems like Ergonomics can also be seen as Human Factors, with “ergon” meaning work and “nomoi” meaning natural laws. It describes the science of work and a person’s relationship to that work.

As a unique scientific discipline, human factors and ergonomics systematically applies the knowledge of human abilities and limitations to the design of systems with the goal of optimizing the interaction between people and other system elements to enhance safety, performance, and satisfaction.