Human factors engineering and ageing

For Human Factors Engineering to be successful in the field of aging it must find ways to cope with heterogeneity in older populations and the environments that they inhabit, broaden its methodology, and carefully consider cost-benefit issues. The author argues that interactions between age and task condition are the touchstones for deriving a unique human factors of aging. Partitioning older adults into those in the workforce, the newly retired, and the frail very old adult can help minimize heterogeneity. National surveys and field studies are underutilized techniques for gathering data about older users. The author reviews some of the age trends that affect performance within such age bands, overview methodologies for gathering data, and present examples from his lab concerning age by condition interactions in print legibility and human-computer interaction.