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Human Factors and Ergonomics (SIT22008) - Essays

(last update: 18 September 2020)

Announcement

• The essay topics might be changed over time, but not be updated in this site yet.
• Therefore, please double-check the LMS.
• Due date for each essay assignment will be noticed in the LMS (lms.handong.edu).

General Guidelines for Writers

• Find guidelines about the essay writing from here.
• Minimum requirement
  • Minimum TWO pages per essay
  • Language: basically, English (Korean is partly allowed)
  • More than half of essay assignments (at least five out of ten essays) should be submitted in English
  • Use the shared essay form (Download: here)
    • Font: Batang & Times New Roman
    • Font size: 12 pt.
    • Line height: 1.5
  • Evaluation
    • Satisfaction of the minimum requirement
    • Evaluation criteria: clarity of opinion, the rationality of argument, creativity about new ideas, depth of own philosophy about the topic
• Do NOT put the instructions in your essay.

Topics

Topic 1. [The First Essay]

Write the first essay including the following subtopics.

• Subtopic 1. Focus on yourself: Say something about yourself. What do you study in Handong? Why do you want to take this course? What do you expect to learn from this course? Is there anything that you’d like to say to the professor?

• Subtopic 2. Focus on people: First, watch the videos listed in Introduction to HF/E, then write this essay to answer the following questions.
  • What is HF/E?
  • What is ‘user-centered’?
  • Remarkable examples of ‘ergonomic’ or ‘user-centered’ products.
  • What makes a product user-centered? (characteristics/features of user-centered products)
  • What values users might get when they use user-friendly products? (effects of HF/E in our daily life)
• Subtopic 3. Good and bad examples around users Look around you. What products/software can you find? Do you see any products that provide better user-friendly experiences? Also, find any other products that are not user-friendly designed so that it provides unsatisfactory or bad experiences to users? Then, provide your ideas on how to improve it to make it more usable.

Topic 2. [2-1. Physical Ergonomics I: Biomechanics]

Watch the videos listed in 2-1. Physical Ergonomics I, then write an essay including the following subtopics.

Biomechanics is a specific domain under HF/E. Did you search #biomechanics in Google’s image search? You might see lots of images related to the skeleton and muscle of the human body. Yes, biomechanics is a domain related to the movement and posture of living creatures. We move (e.g., walking, running, dancing, standing work at a factory, sitting for desk work, playing sports, holding heavy stuff, controlling keyboard and mouse, touching smartphone) by controlling our muscles.

• Subtopic 1. Summary: Summarize what you’ve learned from the videos. You can use “bullet points” to list important concepts in short sentences. Here are important questions on this topic. Don’t exceed one page for a summary.
  • How do people move?
  • What is biomechanics?
  • What knowledge do you need to have if you want to understand human motion?
  • How can biomechanics be used in our daily life?
  • How can biomechanics be applied in special areas such as sports engineering/science, design for disabled people?
  • What are the applicabilities of the motion capture system?
  • What are the applicabilities of the EMG system?
  • Why is it important to understand the physical characteristics of humans in user-friendly product design?
  • What is a good design in terms of biomechanics view?

• Subtopic 2: Do Googling, then provide one case study regarding “how the knowledge of biomechanics can help people in their daily life?” For example, you may explain how bionic prosthesis works based on the muscle data (called EMG). Or you may describe how a webcam image with OpenPose library can detect hand postures (see this blog). Related keywords for this subtopic: #biomechanics, #musculoskeletal system, #human motion, #human movement, #muscle activities, #motion capture, #depth sensing, #OpenPose, #EMG, #bionics, #exoskeleton, #occupational biomechanics, #sports science.

• Subtopic 3: Provide your own idea of a new product or service, which is based on human biomechanical data (e.g., motion data, EMG data) for general or specific target users. Provide detailed features, related ICT technologies, app design, major functions of your idea. Also, try to provide figures or sketches of your idea.

Topic 3. [2-2. Physical Ergeonomics II: Anthropometry, Ergonomics at Workplace, Virtual Ergonomics]

Watch the videos listed in 2-2. Physical Ergonomics II, then write an essay including the following subtopics.

• Subtopic 1. Summary: Summarize what you’ve learned from the videos. You can use “bullet points” to list important concepts in short sentences. Here are important questions on this topic. Don’t exceed one page for a summary.
  • What is anthropometry?
  • What to get human body size and shape data?
  • How is the knowledge of anthropometry used in our daily life?
  • If you need to design a chair and desk for the classroom, which body parts do you need to measure?
  • What are the applicabilities of the 3D scanning?
  • Why is a good posture necessary for our life?
  • What ergonomic knowledge can support an healthy and safe work in factories and offices?
  • What is the virtual ergonomics?

• Subtopic 2: How can the knowledge of anthropometry and 3D body scanning help a certain people in their life? First, set a target user (e.g., normal adults, ladies/gentlemen seeking a fit suit, fast-grwoing children, weakened elderly people, disabled people, …). You may search some existing products with keywords including #anthropometric design, #3d body scanning, #3d human shape, #digital human modeling, #human body size, #human body shape, #prosthetics, etc.

• Subtopic 3: Provide your own idea of a new product or service, which can make people in good, safe, and healthy posture (at industry/office workplaces, at home, at a hospital, at school, or at other particular places).
  • Explain detailed features of your product/service.
  • Try to provide figures or sketches of your idea.

Topic 4. [3-1. Cognitive Ergonomics I: Information Processing Model]

Watch the videos listed in 3-1. Cognitive Ergonomics I, then write an essay including the following subtopics.

• Subtopic 1. Summary: Summarize what you’ve learned from the videos. You can use “bullet points” to list important concepts in short sentences. Here are important questions on this topic. Don’t exceed one page for a summary.
  • Understanding the human brain and cognitive process
  • What is IPM?
  • Key concepts of IPM
    • (1) sensation/perception
    • (2) attention (divided attention & selective attention)
    • (3) memory (short-term memory and long-term memory)
  • Could people focus on many things at the same time? (about multi-taking)
  • How does the IPM explain about limitations of our brain?
  • How is the knowledge of IPM used in our daily life?
  • What is the user-centered design in terms of the IPM?
  • Why the cognitive health is the matter? (if cognitively unhealthy, what happened?)
  • How to improve cognitive health?

• Subtopic 2: Explain the process of human behavior (for example, learning HF/E, taking an exam, decision making for dinner, playing basketball, find a restaurant, plan a trip, plan a birthday event, …) using the IPM. What information is processed through sensory memory, short-term memory (= working memory), and long-term memory while doing the chosen task, and how? Draw an IPM chart to explain the chosen task. (No perfect answer is required. You will try to explain the IPM several times more in this course.)

• Subtopic 3: Provide your own idea of a new product (e.g., device, smartphone app, service platform, …), which can increase information processing performance such as focusing/attention, better memorization, faster and more accurate calculation, reasonable comparison, and so forth. Or a new product that can make you cognitively healthier.

Topic 5. [3-2. Cognitive Ergonomics II: Human error, cognitive training, and fight or flight response]

Watch the videos listed in 3-2 Cognitive Ergonomics II, then write an essay including the following subtopics.

• Subtopic 1. Summary: Summarize what you’ve learned from the videos. You can use “bullet points” to list important concepts in short sentences. Here are important questions on this topic. Don’t exceed one page for a summary.
  • Why do people make errors? (explain it in terms of the relationship between human error and IPM)
  • How to prevent human errors in terms of the user-centered design perspective?
  • Types of cognitive skills (e.g., calculation speed, quality of memorization, the accuracy of decision making, …)
  • How the cognitive skills could be trained? (explain it in terms of the relationship between the cognitive training and IPM)
  • What is ‘fight or flight’?
  • What is the cognitive workload?
  • How to manage cognitive load (or say, stress)?

• Subtopic 2: From the knowledge about ‘fight or flight response’, you might get ideas on how our physiological status can be technically explained based on bio-signals. Human bio-signals are broadly used to recognize the physical, cognitive, and emotional status of people. Here are some examples. (1) #ECG, #EEG, #eye movement, #body temperature, #skin conductance, … can tell whether we are nervous/afraid or not. (2) ECG, body temperature, and eye movement data can tell if a driver is drowsy while driving. (3) A smartwatch (or any other wearable device) can catch if a person seems in abnormal status.
  Question: Then, what other cases do you know about sensing human bio-signals to help people to manage their stresses or workloads? Or you may provide your idea(s) on the use of human bio-signals for managing cognitive stress or workloads.

• Subtopic 3: Look around. Find any product or app or its interfaces, which easily make people causing an error (e.g., wrong decision making, wrong perception, wrong calculation, misunderstand, mistake, slip, failure, memory lapse, …). If you find a case, provide your ideas (with some sketches) on how to fix it to reduce human error.

Topic 6. [4-1. Emotional Ergonomics I: Emotional Engineering, Measurement of Human Emotion]

Watch the videos listed in 4-1 Emotional Ergonomics I, then write an essay including the following subtopics.

• Subtopic 1. Summary: Summarize what you’ve learned from the videos. You can use “bullet points” to list important concepts in short sentences. Here are important questions on this topic. Don’t exceed one page for a summary.
  • What is human emotion?
  • How are human emotion and cognition similar and different?
  • How could human emotions be measured?
  • How are the human emotions used in commercial products?
  • How can the computer know human emotion by analyzing the human face?

• Subtopic 2: In the session of cognitive ergonomics II (related to ‘fight or flight response’), we had learned how the human bio-signals present human cognitive status. Continued from that, this time, we are thinking of the bio-signals as they can explain human emotions. Provide some ideas on how the human bio-signals or human bio-data (e.g., brain signal, eye movement, facial expression) can be used for human happiness. For example, how could the knowledge and technology of emotional engineering help Handong students mentally and emotionally healthy in college life? (related keywords to this question: #neuroscience, #neuromarketing, #Brain-Computer Interaction, #affective engineering, #UX engineering, …)

• Subtopic 3: AI/robot technologies are getting developed very fast. Let’s suppose that the AI can perfectly measure human emotions based on our bio-signals, facial recognition, and behavior analysis; also emotionally responses to you like an actual human (based on computer algorithms, of course!). What are your positive and negative thoughts about a computer/device/robot’s emotional reaction to you? (Did you perhaps watch the movie ‘Her’?) Provide your arguments/opinion on the emotionally positive/negative effects of the human-like robot/computer in people’s daily lives.

Topic 7. [4-2. Emotional Ergonomics II: Emotional Design]

Watch the videos listed in 4-2 Emotional Ergonomics II, then write an essay including the following subtopics.

• Subtopic 1. Summary: Summarize what you’ve learned from the videos. You can use “bullet points” to list important concepts in short sentences. Here are important questions on this topic. Don’t exceed one page for a summary.
  • What are positive emotions and negative emotions?
  • Power of the positive emotion
  • What is emotional design?
  • Why do we have to care human hapiness (or positive emotions) when we design a product or a service?
  • What is the UX?
  • How is the UX related to the human emotions?

• Subtopic 2: How can human emotion affect human behavior? Let’s think about how emotion can make people doing good or bad. For example, if someone keeps getting irritated/annoyed by using a product (due to awkward/uncomfortable user interfaces), he/she might behave an unkind action to somebody nearby. Or if someone is so enjoyed by a user-friendly service, she/he could be very happy for the day. Provide some good and bad examples which make people have good or bad emotions. And discuss the ** #power of design (= effects of design)** and importance of emotional ergonomics in product/service design.

• Subtopic 3: How do you think about the power of positivity? Get this Design for Happiness Cardset by clicking the link. Then, by referring to the keywords (e.g., #amusement, #confidence, #courage, #dreaminess, #energetic, #fascination, #hope, #joy, #kindness, #love, #pride, #satisfaction, …) in the cardset, provide new product/service ideas on how to make people being more positive. Try to put some figures and visual examples about your ideas.
  For example:
  • How to make people being amused?
  • How to make people being proud of themselves?
  • How to make people being joyful?
  • How to make people thank each other?
  • How to make people encouraged?
  • How to make people doing kind actions?
  • How to make people having hope?

Topic 8. [5-1. Usability I: Design with Users & Usability Evaluation]

Watch the videos listed in 5-1 Usability Engineering I, then write an essay including the following subtopics.

• Subtopic 1. Summary: Summarize what you’ve learned from the videos. You can use “bullet points” to list important concepts in short sentences. Here are important questions on this topic. Don’t exceed one page for a summary.
  • Consideration of users in the design process
  • Concept of participatory design
  • Meaning of usability
  • Meaning of usability evaluation (or testing)
  • Methods of usability evaluation
  • about the rule of “85% from 5 participants”

• Subtopic 2: The USER needs to be importantly considered in product development. Why? What can be happened if the USER (e.g., their needs/wants, their working environment/situation, their physical/cognitive/emotional characteristics, …) is not appropriately considered in a product development process? What are the benefits of involving users in the product/service development process? There are many reasons/aspects, which might result in a product being successful or failing. How is ‘usability’ important for the product’s success? Do you know any success or failure stories related to the consideration of users? (keywords: #user-centered design, #design with users, #co-design, #usability, #usability evaluation)
  (Note) "product" mentioned in this question widely includes various types of the produced things such as ICT devices, home appliances, crafts, meals, designs, equipment, facility, buildings, home, interior, software, smartphone app, ...

• Subtopic 3: What is the meaning of “Designers are not users” from the first video (by Jakob Nielsen) of the list? And why should you meet actual users in order to hear their voice? How do recent companies try to understand users?

Topic 9. [5-2. Usability II: User-Centered Design Principles]

Watch the videos listed in 5-2 Usability Engineering II, then write an essay including the following subtopics.

• Subtopic 1. Summary: Summarize what you’ve learned from the videos. You can use “bullet points” to list important concepts in short sentences. Here are important questions on this topic. Don’t exceed one page for a summary.
  • Concept of human-centered design
  • User-centered design (UCD) principles
  • Mental model
  • Concept of inclusive design
  • Concept of universal design

• Subtopic 2: From the philosophy of “INCLUSIVE DESIGN” and “UNIVERSAL DESIGN”, we may think about “the range/coverage of USERS”. Apple’s accessibility policy is a very good example to see how the company tries to provide its products to various people including the disabled. Hereby, we may think about USER versus HUMAN, and “USER-centered” vs. “HUMAN-centered”. Please discuss how HUMAN is different from USER and the meaning of including various people as a user in a product/service.

• Subtopic 3: Everybody knows that user-centered design (UCD) is important. And UCD is one of the success factors in business. But, how-to-design is a different story. There are general guidelines for the user-centered design (e.g., #simplicity, #affordance, #mapping, #consistency, #flexibility, #structure, #constraints, #tolerance, #feedback, …), but the specific considerations are all different by product. Discuss “the challenges of user-centered design”. (tip. You may find plenty of articles on Google.)

Topic 10. Epilog

Please share how you studied in this course, also how you have have worked in the team. Which core concepts have you learned? What have you earned from the activities of this class? What is the new experience you have gotten in the course? How did you do it through the course? How did you learn and experience? How did you achieve your initial goal? What is your next step in human-centered design, HF/E, HCI, or UX/UI areas? How could the earned knowledge and experiences be used in your future study or work? And do you have anything to share related to this course?

• no page limit for this assignment