ABSTRACT

The use of ‘machines’ always takes place within an environment and it can be seen from the Noyes and Baber (1999) model that this extends to encompass organisational issues. Certainly this is the case with the traditional workplace although the extent to which ‘organisational issues’ could be applied to the increasing use of tools, technology and computers in the home is debatable. Chapter 4 focused on the physical aspects of the working environment; this chapter will extend this definition of environment to consider some of the organisational issues that can influence human performance in the workplace. Again, it must be remembered that the Human Factors/ergonomic approach is to consider the ‘whole’, and it would be unwise to focus on the design of human-machine interactions without reference to the larger picture.