ABSTRACT
Jordan (op. cit.) has identified three stages of integration, which he has called: Phase 1-Being ignored (Self-explanatory) Phase 2-‘Bolt on’ human factors (Post-facto clean-up of the interface) Phase 3-Integrated human factors (H.F. specialists in the design team) The integration of design and ergonomics/human factors is such an obvious sine quanon of design
excellence that it seems ridiculous to have to spell it out, but the fact remains that the need was not always so obvious. At the turn of the century neither profession existed anyway, and when ergonomics
invented itself as a discipline in the forties and fifties, it assumed the trappings of science and ignored the (apparently scientifically unsupportable) methods of the art-orientated design world. Moving back together has been precipitated by the recognition that design, defined as human/ product interaction in its broadest sense, is the most significant product differentiator, moving ahead of technological sophistication and even, in our affluent societies, of price. When every machine has the same cheap chip, what gives a product added value? Black-box technology has shaken the foundations of traditional design approaches. For many current products, the modernist credo that ‘form-follows-function’ is a very shaky concept; it is difficult to assign, with any degree of certainty, form to a current running through a circuit board. As a consequence we have witnessed unprecedented freedom of formal expression, and along with it the sort of uncertainty which often accompanies such freedoms.
