Human Factors Engineering in Complex Socio-Technical Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Human factors engineering (HFE) can be described as a discipline that aims to design usable, safe, productive, and pleasurable products or systems that people should interact with in their daily activities or professional work. For this purpose, HFE follows the philosophy of ‘human-centered design’ and draws on concepts, principles, frameworks, models, and processes from cognitive psychology, design science, systems engineering, computer science, management, and so on. HFE is one of the most representative multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary subjects. However, even though HFE can be applied to any kind of product or systems, it has several peculiar characteristics when it is concerned with the analysis, design, evaluation, operation, and disposal of complex socio-technical systems such as nuclear power plants, airplanes and air traffic control systems, advanced manufacturing systems, intelligent transportation systems, and so on. HFE in such a system requires a comprehensive work domain analysis, as well as a task analysis. Of several performance or quality attributes, safety is the most important attribute in a complex socio-technical system. Thus, the main focus of HFE in such a system is the design of a safe working environment and the safe operation of the system. As advanced information technologies are increasingly introduced in a complex socio-technical system, cognitive issues when human users interact with these systems become increasingly important. This Special Issue aims to introduce state-of-the-art research on HFE in a complex socio-technical system. The typical research topics include the following:

Cognitive work analysis, work domain analysis, cognitive task analysis, cognition and complexity, cognitive performance issues, joint cognitive systems, human–computer interaction in complex systems, human–computer joint intelligent systems, human performance modeling, human errors, human reliability, system safety, resilience engineering, training systems development, human–machine interfaces, information displays and controls for complex systems.

Prof. Dr. Dong-Han Ham
Guest Editor

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• human factors engineering
• cognitive systems engineering
• human–machine interaction
• system safety
• resilience engineering
• socio-technical systems
• human performance