THALES NEDERLAND B.V. AND/OR ITS SUPPLIERS. THIS INFORMATION CARRIER CONTAINS PROPRIETARY INFORMATION WHICH SHALL NOT BE USED, REPRODUCED OR DISCLOSED TO THIRD PARTIES WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION BY THALES NEDERLAND B.V. AND/OR ITS SUPPLIERS, AS APPLICABLE. www.thalesgroup.com My system runs perfectly without users! Human Factors in System Engineering Dr. Michel Varkevisser Engineering Psychologist Thales Research & Technology, Delft
2 / Thales Group Defense Aerospace Transportation Security Space
3 / General Scope HF @ Thales
4 / Why Human Factors? Set switch B47 to on Switch B47 No! You set switch B47 to on Taken from http://joshpelton.com
5 / What is Human Factors? The study of how humans behave physically and psychologically in relation to particular environments, products, or services. User-Centered Design
6 / What does it bring? Benefits Customer satisfaction De-risk internal projects Cost reduction Tuned to the end-user Innovation
7 / What it is not Human Factors 1. Is just common sense 2. Can t be measured 3. Is just for making things look nice 4. Costs too much 5. Is unrelated to system engineering 6. Is a magic trick
8 / What it is not Human Factors 1. Is just common sense 2. Can t be measured 3. Is just for making things look nice 4. Costs too much 5. Is unrelated to system engineering 6. Is a magic trick
9 / Know thyself and thy user
10 / Know thyself and thy user
General Architecture Information Flow 11 / Operators & Systems not just HMI Overall goal(s): system alignment Overall goal(s): operator alignment (Operators) Perception/ Cognition HMI/GUI Information representation System functionalities &components Mapping of system-tooperator functionalities System of Systems Dataflow + Communication + Distributed locations
12 / Scale of problem definition Scale of Solution 1. System of Systems 2.Composed Service 3. Single Service Context of use known Existing system COTS required HF required Yes No Yes No Yes Part No Yes No
13 / Freedom to Design
14 / Freedom to Design Scenario walkthroughs System concept development Human in the loop evaluation
15 / HSI Process from HF perspective Human Factors Orient Design Develop Integrate and verify System Development
16 / HSI Process from HF perspective Research Research Assess User Human Factors Design Assess User Design Orient Design Develop Adapt Adapt Orient Design Develop Integrate and verify System Development
17 / GUI Information Management example Workshops Develop/evaluate Workshops Research Assess User Design Concept system Workshops Adapt System design Workshops Scenarios/Workflow
18 / How things can still go wrong
19 / How things can still go wrong
20 / How things can still go wrong
21 / To conclude For good design you pay now, for bad design you pay later (and more) Re-design/re-engineering Loss of customer(s) Ask advice R&T/HF department (Large Companies) Hire HF consultant (Small & Medium-sized Companies) Perfect world model: Team of system engineers, designers & HF experts Human Factors is a profession not a trick
22 / Thales Human Factors & Cognition De-risking internal projects User-centered design Customer satisfaction Innovation Michel.Varkevisser@nl.thalesgroup.com