Status of Human Factors and Ergonomics Education: Are Universities Providing the Skills Required for Consumer Product Design?

Abstract

This debate explored the state-of-the-art in human factors education and the skills that are desired as professionals enter industry to design consumer products. This debate addressed the specific needs of consumer product design, where a consumer product was defined as a product that is purchased by the end user and used by this person. Inherent in this definition is the fact that both the purchase and use of this product are left to the discretion of the user. Therefore, this product must not only facilitate the efficient completion of a task but also satisfy a basic user need.

This debate attempted to arrive at a consensus on potential improvements to the training of individuals within the university environment, and to identify potential industry contributions to improve the quality of education of human factors and ergonomics professionals in consumer product design. This consensus was obtained by bringing together industry representatives from Fortune 500 companies and design firms with professors from prominent universities. University representatives provided a short overview of their human factors curriculum, the skills that this curriculum provides their students and views on how additional industry involvement could improve the quality of education. Industry representatives provided an overview of their organizations and the skills that are expected of new employees as they enter the work force. The debate occurred as differences were identified between the views expressed during these presentations.

Among the topics debated were: 1) the importance of student internships versus additional course work, 2) the importance of general human factors principles versus extensive course work within specialized areas, 3) the need for education of theoretical knowledge versus applied training where students learn to make tradeoffs when the ideal cannot be achieved, 4) training involving communication within multidisciplinary teams versus relatively homogeneous human factors programs, 5) a focus on methods for determining consumer needs versus historical methods for determining needs of trained operators of large systems, and 6) training the human factors graduate as an evaluator of consumer products versus a creator/generator of new product concepts.