In response to my recent commentary, a friend (yes you, PJ) asked whether human factors research offers insights into impulse buying, and if the science might help her rein in this behavior. Her timing was apt: November being the bloodletting month of consumerism had just passed, marked by the twin juggernauts of 11/11 and Black Friday sales, preluding to the crescendo of Christmas Consumerism. Out loud, I likely told her that human factors has little to offer. Inwardly, I wondered if human factors ironically contributed to her kopskam,
Consider the latest Netflix documentary Buy Now!, which explores how corporations keep customers perpetually buying, often at the expense of planetary health. The film dissects strategies employed by giants like Amazon, Apple, and Adidas. It showcases iterations of Amazon’s "minimum spending for free delivery" banners and its patented “1-click” button, each meticulously designed to elicit maximum engagement. From two-hour deliveries to physical stick-on buttons that reorder household items with a single press, Amazon excels at lowering the barriers to consumption. These are triumphs of user-centric design—human factors at its most commercially successful.
At the recent International Ergonomics Association (IEA) Congress, Professors Andrew Thatcher and Wei Zheng chaired a discussion regarding the future of work. Andrew, the newly minted IEA president, had attendees discussing the impact of human factors and its moral implications (which is a tad ironic, given human factors' mission to ultimately improve lives). Do we and should we, as the human factors & ergonomics community, draw the line somewhere? The debate looms large when considering that many human factors practitioners contribute to industries with ethical gray areas, such as defense, transportation, and tech. Where does responsibility lie, with the science, or with the people wielding it?
Hold up. My point isn’t to argue that “human factors doesn’t kill people, people kill people,” or to suggest that certain human factors professions are holier than thou. What frustrates me is the huge discrepancy in attention paid to human factors—lavished by the profit-driven and power-hungry, but neglected by more altruistic endeavors. I still joke that there’s more human factors consideration in a single rifle than in an entire hospital operation. Every Singaporean son who’s served National Service can attest to the meticulous design of firearms: magnified scopes and laser aiming devices, add-ons to accommodate left-handed users, safety constraints that prevent improper reassembly during stripping, and many more intentionally-designed aids and processes to ensure operational success. By contrast, healthcare systems often seem littered with booby traps ready to harm, a by-product of ignoring readily available human factors knowledge.
The good news is that many of these booby-traps can be understood—and mitigated—through established human factors research, and much of this research has already been funded by corporations and defense agencies. Our understanding of situational awareness in healthcare is built on decades of air force research. Though the comparison between healthcare and aviation is cliché, many aviation safety initiatives have proven effective in addressing healthcare’s systemic issues. As Canadian human factors researchers Joseph Cafazzo and Olivier St-Cyr noted, the Ecological Interface Design framework originally developed for process control, can also transform medical technology. For example, device interfaces can take advantage of emergent features to significantly support adaptive problem-solving and error-prone knowledge-based behaviors.
If there’s one thing I hope for in the coming year, it’s that human factors in healthcare ceases to be an afterthought. Too often, its professionals are overlooked and its principles are cherry-picked or misapplied, with doctors "playing doctor" and examining only what interests them. Meanwhile, Amazon’s R&D team might seriously make Ronny Chieng’s “Prime Before” a reality, ensuring that PJ gets what she wants without a moment’s thought.
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