What is Human Factors?
Human Factors is about designing products, systems and equipment around people. It uses psychology and physiology to understand human limitations – both mental and physical – to make things better and more effective. The concept was born out of World War II, when technical experts designed systems that users often found hard to use or understand.
We might start with a base of scientific knowledge to understand physical and mental capabilities – things like body measurements or the likelihood of errors due to fatigue. But it goes way beyond the science. It’s about listening to users and considering their needs and journey. After all, they are the ones who really know their environment and so their input, alongside scientific knowledge, is how we make design more representative and inclusive. And that is what Human Factors is all about.
Human Factors is a big growth area at Thales. In the defence sector, for example, it could be something like designing a control room onboard a ship or a submarine. Here, we would look at the constraints of the working environment – elements such as lighting, conditions and temperature – to ensure it is best suited to the users in an operational environment.
Naturally, the defence sector also comes with some tough operating environments, often hostile and high-stress situations. Consider the handheld devices that soldiers use on the ground; we must consider the displays, the controls and how they might interface with an armoured vehicle, along with how easy they are to use under the duress of the battlefield.
A soldier in a stressful situation will need to know that a button has 100% definitely been pressed. And this might be done with a design whereby the button clicks or springs back to provide this reassurance.
Amanda Widdowson, Head of Human Factors Capability, Thales in the UK
Human factors considerations are broad. Different areas include personnel (understanding the capabilities of people) in addition to social, cultural and organizational factors. Safety is also a big one; systems must be designed to minimise the risk of human error and injury. Sometimes human factors mean mending something that's broken – a retrospective investigation into what things have gone wrong. What were the human factors' root causes? With our knowledge of human vulnerabilities, what caused an incident? Then we can target the fixes and the mitigating actions to prevent an incident from reoccurring.
While physical ergonomics and interface design are two distinct areas, they are very much linked. Consider putting a piece of equipment – a display unit, say – onto a ship. We must think about where to position it and the physical ergonomics, as well as the software on the display. There are also standards set out by the government, such as JSP 912 and DEFTSAN 00-251 around integrating human factors into defence systems, which impact the work that Thales does.
Thales developed a novel approach to identify human vulnerabilities in cyber security. We’ve applied it to several military organisations as well as Williams F1. Two assessments were conducted for Williams. The data collection comprised a questionnaire survey, structured interviews and a review of documentation. The results were automatically analysed by CHEAT®, our in-house assessment tool. Our consultants then reviewed and tailored these automated recommendations. This process resulted in improvements to training and employee consultation and helped us to move on to further discussions about information sharing on social media.
The UK Human Factors/User Experience capability was centralised at a senior level in May 2021, and is rapidly growing as a result. The team is professionally accredited by the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF) and the British Psychological Society (BPS). The central competence centre is led by a former President and Chartered Fellow of the CIEHF and Associate Fellow of the BPS.
Staff members have received multiple Human Factors awards, including the MOD’s H. Rowbotham award for “outstanding contribution to the field of Human Factors Integration (HFI)”; the Management Consultancies Association’s Thought Leader Consultant of the Year (Highly Commended) and the CIEHF’s Lifetime Achievement award for “significant contributions to the application of ergonomics/HF”.
The team has multi-sector experience, but the majority of the work is in Defence, applying standards including DEFSTAN 00-251 in land, sea and air projects across all Human Factors Integration domains and Technology Readiness Levels.
A wide range of Human Factors methods are deployed including:
- Task and workload analysis
- Physiological and neurological tools
- Personnel analysis (utilising an in-house tool)
- Workstation and workplace/control room design; (including the application of anthropometry and biomechanics)
- Human Computer Interface (HCI) design/assessment
- Training Needs Analysis
- Human Reliability Analysis.
Our in-house Cyber Human Error Assessment Tool (CHEAT®) enhances cyber security resilience by measuring and mitigating Human Factor risks.