Proper Contexts of Ergonomics and Role of Ergonomists in the Product Development Process = Proper Contexts of Ergonomics and Role of Ergonomists in the Product Development Process

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Ergonomics has been known for its diversity and interdisciplinary nature. Ergonomic knowledge comes from a vast mixture of psychology, physiology, science and engineering, which often provides us with ergonomic design principles or guidelines and it is up to us how to organize the knowledge in a proper form for the application in real fields. In the past, most ergonomists are professionally concerned with the design and evaluation of workplaces and products, focusing on human interfaces, whether they are mental or physical. Although this is still quite valid in these days, we as ergonomists are in need for better or more suitable methodologies, especially throughout the product and service development processes. In the presentation, several ways or aspects to equip us with more suitable methodologies are discussed. An introduction of other disciplines to our body of knowledge such as marketing in the context of segmentation and positioning is among them. Furthermore, ideation and creative processes need to be employed beyond the design and evaluation of existing systems for improvement. A new body of ergonomic knowledge must be formed for them to be contextually right, depending on the developmental level of companies or the type of businesses of interest because ergonomic objective must differ according to the business objective of the system development, whether it is usability, customer affection, or identity building.