Building Performance Measurement into Today's Testing and Evaluation (T&E)

Abstract

Successful examples of building performance testing and evaluation (T&E) into a contemporary product/system development are presented. These examples serve in contrast with an increasing move toward exclusive use of subjective methods in technologically-driven human-factors/ergonomics (HF/E). This trend in “tech-driven” HF/E arguably parallels early-HF/E (<‘65) with a paucity of relevant literatures and guidance - but also suggests that performance considerations could be creatively incorporated into the development process as in earlier HF/E. Examples illustrate that (1) generally there is sufficient time to properly consider performance, and (2) proper performance consideration often requires relatively few resources, when practitioners make greater use of their imagination. Performance considerations and assessment can be creatively built into today's HF/E T&E.