HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING
LESSON 39:
REAL WORLD PROBLEMS, PART II
Here we are on the final informational lesson of your Human Factors
Engineering Course.
In this lesson you will continue the involvement you
began in Lesson 38 with the United Colonies of the Atlantic and their
defense system.
It now looks like the SALV will become a reality. You and the other
members of the design team have considered how the SALV fits into the
overall defense system. The global mission requirements and functions for
the system and its subsystems have been defined. Because of your valuable
contributions so far, your team was also required to ensure that human
factors principles are used in the construction of the SALV cockpit
prototype. So, let's consider some other details of the cockpit design.
On Pages 169-172 of the Supplement you will find a human factors
checklist1 which we may view as a list of information that you should
remember from your first 20 lessons. Take a look at the checklist. Each
item can help focus your thinking in a particular area. For example, let's
take item 1. This is the only one which addresses the issue of noise. If
you had to check 'yes' to item 1, what others questions should you be
asking?
(1) Is the environment too discomforting?
Can a warning signal be heard?
Can communication be written instead of oral? Turn to Page 11.
(2) Is the noise level loud enough to cause hearing loss? Is speech being
masked by the present noise level?
How can this problem be solved?
Turn
to Page 86.
(3) Is the noise due to too many audio displays?
How can the engine be
redesigned so the noise can be most effectively muffled? Turn to Page 35.
1This checklist was taken from a Human Engineering Laboratory publication,
TM 29-76, "Guide for Obtaining and Analyzing Human Performance Data in a
Materiel Development Project."
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