Human Factors and Ergonomics

As artificial intelligence and autonomous systems become part of complex work environments, their value depends on how people understand, evaluate, and use them. Drawing on military operational experience and human factors research, this talk examines trust and decision-making in teams involving multiple humans and multiple autonomous systems. Dissertation findings illustrate how teammate-provided information and decision time constraints shape trust in autonomy, with implications for team communication and appropriate reliance on autonomous systems. Building on these...

This 8-week, asynchronous online course teaches students how to identify the components of occupational tasks that can contribute to musculoskeletal injury and/or fatigue, quantify the risks associated with those components using the most relevant ergonomics assessment tools, and to integrate that information into conclusions regarding the acceptability of the risk. The course will use physical ergonomics as an example of evidence-based practice by not only covering the analysis tools, but also explaining their scientific basis and outlining their strengths and limitations for various work...

This 8-week, asynchronous online course will focus on the role of Human Factors & Ergonomics (HF/Ergo) in the design of occupational tasks and consumer products. The course starts with an introduction to human-centered design concepts and the design process, followed by an overview of human capacity including a detailed examination of anthropometry, as this is essential for human-centered design. Next, we cover the use of engineering design optimization methods such as motion capture, force measurement and digital human modeling and simulation software, and the use of validated...

This course explores the essential topics of human information processing, controls and displays, sensory and cognitive contributions to systems, and implications for the design of systems in the workplace. The field of human factors and ergonomics is interdisciplinary, with applications wherever humans interact with equipment in a system's context. Examples will be drawn from a wide range of work contexts, including medicine, transportation, and computer tasks. Learners will differentiate cognitive ergonomics, and how it fits into design and analysis. Typical design problems will be...