Brian Peacock

Police officers' responses to 8 and 12 hour shift schedules

The opportunity arose to conduct an extensive before and after study when a city police force changed from an 8 hour 12 day shift cycle to a 12 hour 8 day system. W170, blood pressure, sleep duration, sleep quality and subjective level of alertness measures showed improvements with the new system. Critical flicker fusion showed reliable within shifts decrements, but no between system differences. Oral temperature showed the expected circadian changes with no indication of phase shift under either system. Urinary catecholamine and grammatical reasoning measures showed no influence of shift-related factors. The overwhelming atmosphere of support for the new system coupled with the absence of any negative ergonomics evidence led to its adoption on a permanent basis.

“Warning: Do Not Use While Sleeping” - The Role of Facilitators

This article is about the role of facilitators: labels, warnings, instructions, procedures, checklists, tutorials, and augmented reality that are not part of the actual operation of a system but are intended to facilitate appropriate use and to prevent misuse. Often these facilitators are temporary in that, after experience with the system, the user can perform satisfactorily and safely without their help. A facilitator aims to supplement the users knowledge or current situation awareness to ensure an accurate and timely transaction and prevent misuse. Unfortunately, the facilitator itself may sometimes be a precipitating cause of failure.

The Six Us: An Ergonomics Approach to Enhancing Product and Process Evaluations

E R G O N O M I C S I N D E S I G N 2 5 testing and evaluation process achieves both depth and breadth. The Five Whys and Five Ws are two simple tools that may be attributed to the Toyota production system and that have been adopted by the Six Sigma community. Many references to these and similar devices are readily available on the Internet, for example, at http://www.isixsigma.com/ index.php?option=com_k2&view= item&id=1308:&Itemid=49. Many other memory-jogging precedents are customized for particular domains; the aviation world is full of them. A pilot uses “CRAFTE” when getting a clearance from air traffic control: clearance, route, altitude, communication frequency, transponder, and when to expect further clearance. The “Six Ts” are used when entering a holding pattern: time (start the stop clock), turn (to the appropriate heading), twist (the navigation aids to the correct orientation), throttle (check the airspeed), tires (don’t forget to put the wheels down), and, finally, talk (tell air traffic controller where you are and what you are doing). Like all facilitators – including instructions, warnings, labels, and procedures – mnemonics are generally most useful for operators or investigators who have less training and experience. However, they may also serve to help more experienced people avoid bad habits and shortcuts. Usability testing has been a fundamental purpose of HF/E for decades. Jones (1963) coined the term fitting trials to describe a process of systematically varying parameters of a workspace to obtain Laws & RuLes

Unwanted Energy - Vibration

Quality and Health Outcomes Once upon a time, a young boy, aged about four, was taken by his uncle on a tractor to plow the stubble in the previous years cornfields. The ground was rough, and they bounced around a lot on the seat, which consisted of a shaped steel platform mounted on a V-shaped steel spring. The rough field also caused the front wheels to transmit the bumps to the steering wheels. When the little boy was allowed to drive, it soon became clear that the immaculately straight furrows were turning into a zigzagging mess; he was certainly not in line to win the plowing championship at the village gymkhana (a horse show and contests testing agricultural skills). The boys performance was degraded by his inability to manage the mechanical vibrations inherent in the task and equipment. Some years later, he returned to work on the farm and was given the much less precise task of towing a set of harrows behind the tractor to further break up the soil before planting the corn. The technology had not improved much he still sat, day in and day out, on a sprung seat, albeit with an old cushion to provide a modicum of damping, and the steering wheel still harmonized with the dancing front wheels. The short-term costs of these efforts were very tired and sore hands and arms. After finishing his undergraduate education in ergonomics, he had a choice between going to graduate school and working for the British aircraft industry, which at that time was very concerned about pilot performance and health as affected by vibrating fixed-wing airplanes and helicopters. He chose the former path, but not before he had the opportunity to learn about the substantial fatigue and performance decrements encountered by pilots, who sometimes had difficulty in reading their instruments correctly and in performing target-aiming tasks. To this day, pilots of small aircraft and helicopters are still hampered by a hostile mechanical vibration environment.

Applying Modeling to Design for Older Populations

The number of “older” people is increasing all over the world and the percentage of the population with age-related disabling conditions will continue to grow significantly as baby boomers age. To support this burgeoning population in maintaining their independence, we must identify how age-related changes degrade the ability to interact with systems and devices that meet basic needs, such as transportation systems, medical devices, and communication tools. We also need to be able to predict whether new products and environments will be usable by most older people. We suggest that modeling and simulation could be used to efficiently study these issues. Panel members who have experience with using modeling to study the interactions of products and users present their perspectives on the use of modeling to study age and system usability.

Dynamic Drilling Displays

Gas and oilwell drilling is a hazardous business which relies on human vigilance to detect a sudden influx of gas from the formation into the well bore, and human control activity to manage the migration of this gas bubble to the surface. The result of human error in either case can result in a blowout which can cause considerable damage to people, equipment and the environment. Human performance in such situations is limited by the harsh physical environment, variable levels of training and variable standards of instrumentation. Recently, computer displays have been introduced to present information in a more appropriate form for aiding human performance. The design of these displays appears to have had very little human factors input. This paper describes some of the ways in which computers displays can be used to reduce the probability of human error and enhance human performance in gas and oilwell drilling.

Forensics Cases Highlight Human Variability in Product Use

In this article, I present six forensics human factors/ergonomics cases that are typical of many situations in which the defendant had no intent to harm the plaintiff and the plaintiff made a (perhaps foreseeable) mistake. Human factors/ergonomics arguments on both sides delved into the latent hazards associated with the product or system design and operation. In some of the cases, the design decision was made for a reasonable purpose, but the safety trade-off was either not considered or simply ignored. In other cases, the “victim” did not behave as intended but did behave in a foreseeable way.

Time for Bed: Shift Work

“It’s bed time.” “I’m not tired.” “You will be in the morning.” “I’m thirsty.” “Have a drink of milk and then go to bed.” “It’s still light outside.” “I’ll close the curtains.” “I’m scared of the dark.” “I’ll put the night light on.” “May I stay up late on Saturday?” “All right, if you are a good girl.” “Will you read me a story?” “If you wish. Once upon a time there were two fairies called Melatonin and Zeitgeber.” “Those are silly names for fairies.” “Zeitgebers are things like light and dark and suppertime and catching the bus to school at seven o’clock in the morning, and Melatonin is a chemical that fills your blood at night when you sleep.” “This is a boring story, I’m going to take a sleeping pill and dream about interesting things like REM.”

Ethics and Ergonomics: Customer Satisfaction:

D E S I G N • S U M M E R 2 0 0 8 C op yr ig ht 2 00 8 by H um an F ac to rs a nd E rg on om ic s So ci et y, In c. A ll ri gh ts r es er ve d. D O I 1 0. 15 18 /1 06 48 04 08 X 33 30 82 his column is the first in a series about ethics and morality in the practice of ergonomics. In this installment, we introduce the ideas and present some of the history of ethics, comparisons with other professions, and measurement challenges. For the purpose of this article, we define morality as a set of (human) laws that aspire to ensure harmony among individuals and groups. Ethics, on the other hand, embraces the study of morality and the practical standards that are set to define morality more precisely. In the series, we will address the various articles in the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society’s Code of Ethics.

Laws & Rules: Subscribed Content Boomer, Sooner, and Donders

Boomer, Sooner, and Donders