HUMAN FACTORS IN SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

Human factor Engineering

HUMAN FACTORS IN SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

INSTRUCTIONS

Your answer to each question should integrate materials from the textbook, lectures, and, possibly, external references.

1. In your current living residence, pick a room that you use frequently (e.g., kitchen, study, bedroom, bathroom, etc.) and pick a task that you perform in that room. The task must require you to use a feature of the room or an appliance in the room (e.g., couch in living, stove in kitchen, smart speaker in bedroom, shaver in bathroom, etc.). Using the selected room and task, provide a human factors description of the following:

(1) Describe the work environment and work activity using the Human Machine Interface Model discussed in class and in the text. Be certain to specify the information flow “inputs” from the user and the “outputs” to the user.

(2) Describe two (2) environmental parameters the can affect the flow of information in the work situation.

(3) Describe one (1) safety hazard and its potential mitigation in the work situation.

(4) Describe how total system performance can be improved for the work situation.

2. In lecture and the text, human attention was discussed as a critical, but limited human resource for the detection of external events (e.g., visual or auditory stimuli), the decision-making associated with those events (e.g., cognitive processing in memory), and the response to those events (e.g., response selection and execution). Using the task of walking down a flight of steps, while wearing a backpack loaded with HF books, and while carrying and drinking a cup of coffee or tea from Starbucks, provide a human factors answer to the following:

(1) Describe how human attention is distributed among external event detection, decision-making, and response processing during this task. Be certain to justify your answer in terms of the Human Information Processing Model.

(2) Describe how the receipt of an incoming text message or phone call would affect the distribution of attention provided in your answer to Part 1 above.

(3) Describe one (1) safety hazard and its potential mitigation for this task situation.

(4) Describe how walking in a crowd of people and being in a hurry (i.e., such as during a fire drill or a build evacuation) would affect the distribution of attention.

Organize your answers clearly. Use graphs and illustrations, as appropriate. Provide references to any cited materials. Include your name on each page of your answers.

Submit your answers by email to bob@umd.edu by 6:59 p.m. on March 8, 2018.

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