Making life work better together
The science and practice of HFE seeks to understand what constrains or promotes optimal human performance.
It relates to the abilities, characteristics, and limitations of being human, and the design of equipment, environments and tasks people interact and engage with.
To optimise human performance, HFE professionals work to understand how people perform in real-world contexts. Applying skills and knowledge built from disciplines including anatomy, physiology, psychology, sociology, biomechanics and design, and taking a ‘systems approach’ to deliver improvements.
Human Factors and Ergonomics professionals can be found working in a broad range of industries, including transport, defence, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, construction, computer software/hardware usability design, and health and safety, to name a few.
Within these complex industries people do not exist in isolation, and thus a ‘systems approach’ recognises that everything is connected; nothing is completely independent. Equipment, procedures, environments and people interact in dynamic ways, and these interactions influence human behaviour and wellbeing.