Introduction

There are now 5000 human factors specialists, and there is academic coursework leading to doctoral degrees, many textbooks (Chapanis et al., 1949; McCormick, 1957; Woodson and Conover, 1964; Van Cott and Kinkade, 1972; Sanders and McCormick, 1997), and an impressive accumulation of peer-reviewed articles during the past 45 years printed in

Human Factors, the Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

. There are many guidance documents, such as the standard practice (ASTM 1166-88), which established general human engineering design criteria for marine vessels (shipbuilding). A second standard, the marine system practice (ASTM 1337-91), established the requirements for applying human engineering in an integrated system engineering, development, and test program. A model specification (SNAME 4-22) for human engineering was published for used by naval architects. Anthropometric data (human dimensions) appeared in architectural design handbooks (Watson, 1997) and automotive vehicle design publications (Snyder, 1977). A human reliability handbook was published by the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Swain and Guttmann, 1980). This is illustrative of the widespread applications of human factors information.