Ergonomics is an engineering science that solves this problem. Here we introduce the origin, application and development prospects of ergonomics.
1. The design of the telephone is the beginning of ergonomics
To mention ergonomics, it is necessary to first introduce a character--Henry Dreyfess (Henry Dreyfess, 1903-1972), who is the founder and founder of ergonomics. Dreyfess initially worked as a stage designer, and in 1929 he established his own industrial design office. He began working with Bell in 1930, and Dreyfus insisted that industrial products should be designed with a high degree of comfort and functionality in mind, proposing the design principle of "from the inside out", which Bell initially thought would make the telephone seem too mechanical, but after his repeated arguments, the company agreed to follow the design principle of "from the inside out". Bell initially thought that this approach would make the telephone look too mechanical, but after his repeated arguments, the company agreed to design the telephone according to his way. Dreyfus would be associated with Bell Telephone for the rest of his life, and he was the most important designer to influence the form of the modern telephone.
As you know, for quite some time since Mr. Bell invented the telephone, Bell was the largest telephone company and telephone manufacturer in the United States with a monopoly, and was largely immune to competition. As a result, Dreyfus could think less about the competitive effect of the exterior design in the marketplace and concentrate more on the perfect functional design of the telephone.
Bell first introduced the horizontal-discharge telephone handset in 1927, changing the previous design of the vertical-discharge handset, and in 1937 Dreyfus proposed a design that combined the handset and the microphone from a functional point of view. Dreyfus designed the Model 300 telephone, which looks old-fashioned today, but this design was the first time that the telephone, which used to be divided into two parts and was very large, was reduced to a whole
body. The success of this design led Bell to sign a long-term design consulting contract with Dreyfus.
In the early fifties, the material used to make the telephone switched from metal to plastic, thus essentially defining the basis for the shape of the modern telephone. By the end of the fifties, Dreyfus had designed more than a hundred telephones. As a result, Dreyfus telephones made their way into millions of homes in the United States and around the world, becoming a basic amenity of the modern home.
Dreyfus's other ergonomic achievements were in a series of agricultural machines he developed for John Deere from 1955 onwards, which were designed around the center of establishing comfortable, ergonomically calculated driving working conditions, characterized by a concise appearance in which the human-related components were designed to meet the basic requirements of human comfort, which was a very important advancement in industrial
industrial design. This is a very important progress and development of industrial design.
Dreyfus's design belief is that the design must meet the basic requirements of the human body, he believes that the machine adapted to the human body is the most efficient machine. After many years of research, he summarized the data about the human body, as well as the proportion of the human body and function, published a monograph in 1955, Design for People, the book collected a large amount of ergonomic data, in 1961 he published a work
The human body measurement (the Measure of Man), thus laying the foundation for the industrial design field of ergonomics as a discipline, Dreyfus became one of the first to put the ergonomics of the human body into the design of the machine, the human body is the most efficient machine. Dreyfus became one of the first designers to systematically apply ergonomics to the design process.
2. The research direction of ergonomics
Ergonomics has now developed into a multidisciplinary industrial design discipline, the core problem of the research is the coordination between people, machines and the environment in different operations, and the research methods and evaluation tools involve psychology, physiology, medicine, anthropometry, aesthetics and engineering technology in many fields, and the purpose of the research is to apply knowledge from various disciplines to design. The purpose of the research is to improve the efficiency, safety, health, comfort and other characteristics through the application of knowledge of various disciplines to
guide the design and transformation of work equipment, work mode and work environment.
Ergonomics from different disciplines, different areas of origin, and for a wider range of fields of research and application, because the man-machine environment is a universal problem in human production and life. Its origin of different disciplines and geographical differences, but also caused the discipline name of the long-term variety of coexistence, in English, the main Ergonomics (European reference), Human
Engineering (U.S. reference), etc., in Chinese, there is also the "human ergonomics", "Human engineering" and "ergonomics" and other expressions. In China, "ergonomics" is generally taken as the standard name of this discipline, while "ergonomics" is more commonly called "ergonomics". In short, human and ergonomics research and human-machine relationship is the core of this discipline.
The study of the various sub-disciplines of ergonomics made a breakthrough during the Second World War, when the development of complex weapons in the war led to a sudden intensification of the problem of human-machine coordination. For example, air combat and fighter planes put forward the physical and intellectual requirements for pilots, making the selection and training of personnel increasingly difficult, prompting in the aircraft instrumentation display,
manipulator tools and pilot seats and other components of the design, had to increase the consideration of human factors, which in turn led to the rapid development of related technologies and methods.
The application field of ergonomics is very wide, involving almost every aspect of human work and life. The following is a list of several major categories of application direction:
(1) human work behavior anatomy and anthropometry; work accidents, health and safety
including anthropometry and workspace design; postural and biomechanical load research; work-related bone, muscle management issues; health ergonomics; safety culture and safety management; safety culture evaluation and improvement
(2) Cognitive ergonomics and complex tasks; environmental ergonomics
cognitive skills and decision-making research; environmental conditions and factors analysis; work environment ergonomics
(3) computer ergonomics; display and control layout design; human-computer interface design and evaluation
software ergonomics; design and layout of computer products and peripherals; office environment ergonomics research; human-computer interface forms
(4) expert evidence: multiple work environments; human reliability
expert evidence survey research; legal ergonomics; causes of injuries; human error and reliability research; litigation support;
(5) industrial design applications
medical equipment; seating design and comfort research; furniture classification and selection; workload analysis;
(6) Management and Ergonomics
Human Resource Management; Work Procedures; Ergonomics Rules and Practices; Manual Handling Loads
(7) Office Ergonomics and Design; Medical Ergonomics
Office and Office Equipment Design; Psychophysiology; Behavioral Criteria; Three-Dimensional Mannequins
(8) Systems Analysis; Product Design and Customers; Army Systems;
Organizational Psychology; Product Reliability and Safety; Apparel Ergonomics; 3D Human Models; Army Ergonomics; Automated Speech Recognition;
(9) Ergonomics Strategies; Socio-Technical Systems; Violence Assessment and Motivation;
(10) Usability Evaluations and Tests; Usability Audits; Usability Assessment; Usability Training; Experimentation and Validation; Simulation and Experimentation; Simulation Studies; Simulation and Prototyping;