We discuss selected highlights of future human performance enhancement and their potential impact as for example envisioned by authors of Science Fiction and Fantasy literature, coming into reach of man now. With reference to a new taxonomy of ergonomics as introduced by Kenneth R. Boff, we discern “technointegration” and “stimulated bioenhancement” and allocate these to the realms of neural re...

As a marked increase in the number of musculoskeletal disorders was noted in many industrialized countries and more specifically in companies that require the use of hand tools, the French National Research and Safety Institute launched in 1999 a research program on the topic of integrating ergonomics into hand tool design. After a brief review of the problems of integrating ergonomics at the d...

Introduction The significant role of macroergonomics and important subsystems In the 90s’ decade, the interest in ergonomics issues in a wide sense grew in enterprise level, as a result of an increasing awareness of the importance of those matters for corporate core values such as productivity, quality and an inevitable change process [1]. Hendrick is attributed macroergonomics with the formali...

The Volkswagen Group operates and coordinates the activities of ergonomics from Wolfsburg in Germany and works with its contact persons of every plant and brand of the group towards an integrated proceeding relating to ergonomics. For the ergonomic process it is very important to consider the ergonomics in the whole production process, still from the beginning the conception and construction of...

This paper raises the issue of ergonomics' role in giving primacy to fully rational individual human actors in the creation of system failure, despite its commitment to see action as constrained by design and operational features of work. Reflecting on recent contributions to the journal, ergonomics' dilemma is considered against Enlightenment assumptions about individual human reason as the ro...

In this paper, we analyse two approaches that attempt to address how a human factors and ergonomics (HFE) perspective can contribute to the sustainability of the human race. We outline the principles, purposes and fields of application of ergoecology and green ergonomics, and thereafter deal with their context of emergence, and the overlaps in purpose, and principles. Shared values are deduced ...

UNLABELLED The present paper is a commentary on the recently published IEA strategy for human factors/ergonomics (Dul, J., et al. (2012), A strategy for human factors/ergonomics: developing the discipline and profession. Ergonomics, 55(4), 377-395). Two main issues that demand attention are: (i) the way others understand our profession and discipline, and (ii) the way we understand our professi...

Industry-specific ergonomics guidelines are an important component in the four-pronged approach to workplace ergonomics currently pursued by the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The American Furniture Manufacturers Association has taken the initiative of developing such a guideline for its members. The result of this effort is the "AFMA Voluntary Ergonomics Guideline...

This paper focuses on the ergonomics evaluation of Medical Tablet Personal Computers (MTPCs). The research questions for the study were “What are the key ergonomics issues in the safe and effective use of a Medical Tablet PC” and “How can we evaluate new Medical Tablet PC concepts in the early stages of the design process”. The aims of the study were to develop an ergonomics checklist for the e...

This book is about a particular solution to the problem of how to design usable computer systems. Apart from this chapter, it may be read as a short history of the research efforts with respect to ETAG, which is the main subject of the book as well as the tool that is proposed to help create usable computer systems. Since answers are meaningless without the questions they address, this chapter ...