Utilizing human factors in the design of critical user interface systems

One way to make a product stand out in today's competitive, cost conscious market, be it commercial or military, is to make it operate intuitively the way a human thinks and functions. Human factors and industrial design can accomplish this by enhancing the man-machine interface of a product. This becomes important when technical features are similar to a competitor's. Furthermore, the military requires human factors and safety evaluations in its contracts. This is not only out of concern for initial costs of a product or system, but also the costs of training personnel and maintenance later. These costs can be reduced with products that are human engineered, thus easier to learn and use. This paper discusses how human factors and industrial design influence the design process in the system engineering approach. A military product is used to illustrate how some of these methods were used to create a control panel on FMC's Electronic Fighting Vehicle System for use by the U.S. Army.