ABSTRACT
Ecological psychology is concerned with the relations that have evolved between organisms and their natural environments that support successful perceiving and acting. Yet, our species is currently unique in that it lives in an environment that is largely of its own construction, built in order to fine-tune or extend the job done by evolution. Most of the objects we grasp, surfaces we walk on, and shelters we inhabit are, for better or worse, artifacts. We are thus in the rather novel position of constructing our own econiche, or as the architect Lerup put it, “We design things and things design us.” Yet, despite several decades of progress in ergonomics, there are still few general working principles for designing environments that fit the activities of human beings and anticipating the reciprocal effects on human activity.
