ABSTRACT
This poor state of human factors input may have arisen paradoxically, from too rapid a recognition of its importance around the time of the personal computer (PC) revolution. At this time (1980s), the scope of human factors input to interactive systems development was poorly defined. Human factors became a victim of its own success, as the development of its methods could not keep pace with the rapid increase in demand for a wider scope of design contribution. Human factors methods then comprised largely of an incomplete collection of disparate techniques, traditionally focused on design evaluation as opposed to design specification (Lim 1996). The scope of its methods (such as task analysis) was thus found to be limited and incomplete in the coverage of the system design cycle. Further, the human factors design process was criticized as largely implicit, and consequently impossible to time or
Intersect with the design activities and contributions from other disciplines. Worse, since the scope and process of human factors design were incomplete and implicit, its project resource demands could not be anticipated and planned for. The result was a lack of management support and commitment, and prolonged exclusion of human factors from the project budgeting and planning agenda. In the absence of an explicit allocation of resources, human factors consideration were observed to be accommodated only opportunistically and sacrificed first (when needed most) when a project hitch arose. In these circumstances, even when project resources were allocated to human factors design, they were encroached upon as managers could not support their retention on the basis of its implicit design scope and process requirements. In an attempt to cope with these difficult constraints, the human factors inputs that could be proffered were found to be inadequately explicit, or worse no more than advice. Consequently, in the late 1980s, it became clear that existing human factors design processes and methods had to develop in earnest.
