Human Factors and Ergonomics in Consumer Product Design : Uses and Applications

Edited by a pioneering researcher and expert, this comprehensive resource discusses how Human Factors provide a unique perspective on consumer product design that is critical to the marketplace. It supplies historical and contemporary theories of human interaction with consumer products and presents the interaction theories with a practical design perspective, to encourage designers to engage in theory-based design. The interaction theories will cover, but not be restricted to: the stimulus-response theories, stage-based theories, schema-based theories, information processing theories, social theories, resource theories, and contextual theories.

Every day we interact with thousands of consumer products. We not only expect them to perform their functions safely, reliably, and efficiently, but also to do it so seamlessly that we don’t even think about it. However, with the many factors involved in consumer product design, from the application of human factors and ergonomics principles to reducing risks of malfunction and the total life cycle cost, well, the process just seems to get more complex. Edited by well-known and well-respected experts, the two-volumes of Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Consumer Product Design simplify this process.

The second volume, Human Factors and Ergonomics in Consumer Product Design: Uses and Applications, discusses challenges and opportunities in the design for product safety and focuses on the critical aspects of human-centered design for usability. The book contains 14 carefully selected case studies that demonstrate application of a variety of innovative approaches that incorporate Human Factor and Ergonomics (HF/E) principles, standards, and best practices of user-centered design, cognitive psychology, participatory macro-ergonomics, and mathematical modeling. These case studies also identify many unique aspects of new product development projects, which have adopted a user-centered design paradigm as a way to attend to user requirements.

The case studies illustrate how incorporating HF/E principles and knowledge in the design of consumer products can improve levels of user satisfaction, efficiency of use, increase comfort, and assure safety under normal use as well as foreseeable misuse of the product. The book provides a comprehensive source of information regarding new methods, techniques, and software applications for consumer product design.