Human factors psychology is a multi-discipline academic specialty called psychology focuses on a variety of distinct areas of interest in both psychology and engineering. Consider ergonomics, mistakes made by people, workplace safety, product engineering, and human-computer interface. Because it is applied to so many different topics, its value extends beyond psychology alone and incorporates elements of engineering.

What Does a Human Factors Psychologist Do?

Human factors psychology (also known as ergonomics or human engineering) is an interdisciplinary field that enhances the design of products, systems and environments, making them safer, more productive and more “user-friendly.”

Human factors psychology is mostly an applied field, but it also allows psychologists to undertake a variety of psychological research, including tests, experiments, and interviews. They can perform research in a multitude of areas, including safety, efficiency, human fatigue, worker morale, management systems and training techniques.

Degree in Human Factors Psychology

The programs in Human Factors Psychology are designed to prepare students to increase user performance, safety, and comfort by incorporating human factors expertise into the design of employment, information systems, consumer items, workspaces, and equipment.

You will identify how behaviors and attitudes can be enhanced by employing training programs, hiring procedures, and feedback mechanisms. Current students are working on multidisciplinary projects including engineering, computer science, medicine, and the military.

What Can You Do With a Degree in Human Factors Psychology?

Product designers and certain human factors psychologists collaborate to study the manner in which people interact with machines and systems. For instance, a carmaker could contact a human factors psychologist to improve the design of a machine so that the user is more productive.

The design of user experiences also involves a lot of human factors experts, so that anything from mobile phones to websites to the dashboard in a vehicle are designed to improve usability and functionality for the end-user. In this role, a human factors psychologist could give advice to designers to recommend the ideal placement of buttons or the optimal size of labels.