ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to provide some insight into the world of the human factors tester, for both the benefit of others in the testing community as well as researchers outside of it. It describes how the formal systems development process works and the role human factors testing plays at each stage of that process. The requirements drive both the design effort and the nature of the test and evaluation program. The structure of the human factors test must be compatible with the test structure developed for the rest of the system and lend itself to aggregation of the data to answer the evaluation issues. There are three fundamental areas where the process can go awry from the human factors test and evaluation perspective: requirements issues, testing issues, and evaluation issues. The chapter also describes some of the common issues and dilemmas faced by human factors testers during a development effort.
