Human Factors for Industrial Designers

Human Factors and Ergonomics for Industrial Designers aims to be a new go-to resource for industrial designers and a key textbook for students in the field, providing a broad and thorough overview of human factors and ergonomics data relevant to contemporary practice. The book presents recent and high-quality qualitative and quantitative data, exploring the human body, the mind, and how people engage with artifacts and complex systems that exist around them. Materials are presented accessibly, visually, and concretely, taking inspiration from the iconic human factors publications by Henry Dreyfuss and his collaborators. It encourages a thoughtful and critical approach to human factors, considering human diversity and intersectionality, the importance and limitations of numbers and thresholds, and the need to conduct additional research with real users whenever possible. The chapters explore the life course, psychology and cognitive sciences, anatomy and physiology, anthropometrics, the senses and sense organs, biological processes, anthromechanics, and health, health literacy, and healthcare settings, while drawing throughout on interviews with more than 40 designers and thought leaders and design examples that connect human factors research to practice. This book will be useful for students and professionals in need of a comprehensive introduction to human factors in design.