Human factor engineering

Ergonomics&sbquo translated in Japanese as ningen kogaku (human engineering). is a field of engineering born during World War I that explored ease-of-use in regards to machines. The aim of the field was efficiency and safety&sbquo and it became part of the background of military technological development. After World War ?&sbquo the phrase "human factor engineering" appeared as another name for ningen kogaku. The aim of this engineering field was to explore relation-ships between human beings and machines along the concepts of amenity&sbquo health and safety&sbquo and to find out in which environments human beings and machines could maintain harmony and order in regards to those three concepts. Efficiency in ergonomics meant seeking speed and accuracy in labor and its results&sbquo and to eliminate human error. In other words&sbquo it employed design engineering to secure safety for human beings operating machines. On the other hand&sbquo what was important in human factor engineering was job satisfaction and life motivation. Easy and pleas-ant operational performance was deemed to be vital to improve efficiency&sbquo and as human health was vital&sbquo safety was positioned as the major premise of comfort and hearth. Thus&sbquo ningen kogaku became a field that accumulated the knowledge of both ergonomics and human factor engineering has accumulated. Since then&sbquo with the immense progress in technology&sbquo the environment that surrounds the man-machine interface has changed drastically&sbquo and the demand for focus and reinforcement in the academic field of ningen kogaku has strengthened. As a result&sbquo more importance was placed on physical nature&sbquo physiology and mentality as human factors&sbquo and hence it is thought that ningen kogaku will be integrated with design engineering through seeking and grasping compatibility between those human factors and the machine interface.

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