Human factors: designing for trades we do not practise
Your users are experts in their field. We are experts in ours.
Designing interfaces for industry, for expert trades or for tightly regulated environments means putting the activity of the people involved, and their context, at the centre of the work. Our founders hold doctorates in human factors and have worked in aeronautics R&D, in automotive R&D, and in a human factors and ergonomics unit of the French Air Force.
When human factors are called for
When errors are costly, or when the trade itself is the subject. For instance:
- Designing an interface for an operator whose activity is regulated and constrained.
- Reducing the cognitive load of a tool used under time pressure or constant interruption.
- Supporting the transformation of a trade whose roles and organisation are changing.
- Understanding the fit between a way of organising work and the tool intended for it.
The problem
An interface that works in a demo can fail on the job, because the job adds noise, fatigue, urgency and interruptions. Tightly regulated operational environments do not tolerate design by intuition. In those environments, we look into the real activity, the cognitive load and the organisation of work before drawing the first screen.
How we work
Analyse the real activity
We study what the operator actually does, beyond what the procedure prescribes. That gap only shows up in situation, and that is where we pick up the workarounds and the adjustments the operator has worked out.
Take stock of the context
We record what the environment imposes: noise, lighting, gloves, urgency, interruptions, work going on around. Each of these rules out interface solutions that would be acceptable elsewhere.
Design under cognitive constraint
We size the information on screen against what an operator can process in situation, with the working memory available and the attention the task leaves them. Anything beyond those limits produces input errors, skipped steps and backtracking.
Evaluate with expert users
We put the proposals in front of the professionals of the trade, who immediately spot what a designer from outside the field would let through. We organise their domain expertise as design input.
We have done it in real working environments
Tunnel emergency closure, tested behind the wheel
See the impact of a human-factors perspectiveFrequently asked questions
It is the study of the human work system as an object of design: the organisation, the cognitive load in situation, the fit between people and their working environment. Critical domains make it compulsory, and it applies well beyond them.
Because it tells you what a human being can perceive, retain and process at a given moment. A screen that exceeds those limits produces errors, whatever the quality of its layout. The principles of perception and attention are constraints, in the same way a technical constraint is.
It is the memory that holds information for the length of an action. It is limited in capacity and in duration. When an interface forces users to memorise a code from one screen to the next, or to hold an instruction in mind through a long form, it relies on a resource they do not have.
The research team includes three doctors in the human and social sciences, specialising in cognitive engineering, and two UX researchers trained in ergonomics and the study of behaviour. Our founders hold doctorates in human factors, with a background in aeronautics and automotive R&D. Our competence is recognised by the French CII accreditation from the ministry responsible for research.
No. A business back office, a management tool, a public service whose staff are changing their posture: these are human work systems. Human factors are relevant as soon as the activity itself, beyond the screen, is part of the problem.