ABSTRACT
The creation of an area of ergonomics specifically dealing with design, integrating the skills and instruments of ergonomics into the processes of the design and realization of industrial products, is still a recent phenomenon. It is the consequence of a range of factors that have progressively converged both the areas of interest and the objectives of the two disciplines. The first cause is the progressive extension of the sectors of research and intervention of ergonomics into all the fields of human activity (work, daily life, use of services), and a parallel shift towards the study and design of the most strictly subjective components of the user-product interaction. The second can be identified as attention to the effective level of quality offered by products, today extended in ever wider bands of users and consumers who are aware of their own needs and expectations and capable of choosing from among the enormous number of options that the contemporary market offers. A third factor, a consequence of the first two, is the growing interest of designers and companies in study and assessment instruments capable of orienting design and production decisions towards the real needs expressed by the market and therefore guaranteeing a product quality that can genuinely satisfy potential users and customers.
