People - Technology - Systems

The figure below summarizes in a very simplified way the People – Technology interface and the influencing environmental factors (for more details study, e.g. chapter 2, 7 and 10, in Ivergard & Hunt, Handbook of Control Room Design and Ergonomics, CRC/Taylor & Francis, 2008). It is important to also have a holistic understanding of this type of interactions – both from the perspective of people and technology. As an example, it might easily be an overrating of Vision for information reception/perception related to Visual Display Units (VDUs) and Hands and other extremities (e.g. fingers) as outputs to Controls, usually in form of Keyboards.

These examples of short sightness are in reality rather common, but far from an optimal use of people and the usability of the vast variety of available technologies. Potentially, we will in the near future expect creative developments of new kind of information and control devices. The recent development of large scale VDUs is a good example. But what about the use of sounds for information and control in combination with advanced mobile technologies? We will probably see a lot of new applications in the near future, which will provide a high degree of usability.