The 'ergonomics paradigm': Foundations, challenges and future directions

The challenges confronting the multi-disciplinary human factors and ergonomics profession are rapidly growing as the pace of technological change redefines the way in which people interact with each other at work and at play. Areas such as human-computer interaction, cognitive ergonomics and information technology management are booming. Calls for greater influence on designing for teams and other large groups of people, i.e. macroergonomics are growing rapidly. All the while, physical ergonomics (e.g. occupational biomechanics, manual materials handling) continues to be a strong focus in the US and around the world. To keep pace with these challenges, each human factors professional should understand the history of the field, remember the complexity of the 'user' and be able to see how their efforts unify and expand the ergonomics discipline. This paper reviews the development of the ergonomics paradigm, explores the challenges confronting the ergonomics discipline and presents ways in which those challenges may be addressed using methodologies familiar to human factors practitioners and researchers.