ABSTRACT
There appears to be a growing number of texts in recent years describing, illustrating and espousing a plethora of ergonomics methods (Diaper, 1 989; Kirwan and Ainsworth, 1 992; Kirwan, 1 994, Corlett and Clarke, 1 995; Wilson and Corlett, 1 995; Jordan et ai. , 1 996) . This rise may be seen as a response to the requirement for more inventive approaches to assessing users and their requirements . In many ways this may be taken to mean that the call for user centred design has been taken seriously by designers . However, this success has forced the ergonomics community to develop methods to assist the design of products and devices . This demand seems to have resulted in the pragmatic development of methods having priority over scientific rigour. In a recent review of ergonomics methods , S tanton and Young ( 1 995 ) identified over sixty methods available to the ergonomist. The abundance of methods might be confusing for the ergonomist, Wilson ( 1 995 ) goes as far as to suggest that a
This quote highlights the fact that most methods are used b y their inventors only. Despite the proliferation of methods , there are few clues in the literature to enable ergonomists to identify which methods are appropriate for any given design activity. Given that most people tend to use their two or three favourite methods , independently of the problem that they are addressing (Stanton and Young , 1 997 ; Baber and Mirza, this volume) , the purpose of this chapter is to show substantive differences between methods. The aim of this chapter is to
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