ABSTRACT

There is a need for usability evaluation at an early stage of product development (Harvey et al. 2011d; Nielsen, 1993; Stanton and Young, 1999a). It is often argued that Ergonomics is involved too late in the engineering design process to have a significant impact, as the ‘evaluations’ are towards the end of the product development life cycle (Bevan, 1995; Card et al., 1983). Rather, Ergonomics could have much more prominence if it were applied at the beginning of the life cycle to concepts and early prototypes (Stanton and Young, 1999a). This way Ergonomics could guide design in a proactive manner, rather than reacting to poor design at the end of product development, when it is too late to have substantive impact on design (Pettitt et al., 2007; Nowakowski et al., 2000).