Instructor: Dr. Steve Kass
Office: Building 41, Room 230
Phone: 474-2107
Email: skass@uwf.edu

Class meets: Mondays & Wednesdays, 1:00pm to 2:15pm in 41/139
Office Hours: M, W 2:30pm to 4:30pm, T 10:00am to 12:00pm.
Required Text: Wickens, C. D., & Hollands, J. G. (2000). Engineering Psychology and Human Performance, 3rd edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Additional readings (see list) will be assigned. Click here to go to Library On-line readings.

Suggested Readings:
Casey, S. (1993).  Set Phasers on Stun and Other True Tales of Design, Technology, and Human Error, Santa Barbara, CA: Aegean Publishing Company.

Norman, D. A. (1990).  The Design of Everyday Things, 1st edition, New York, NY: Doubleday Publishing.

Course Description: This course is recommended for psychology students interested in seeing how the principles of their study apply to work design, or for students of computer science and other disciplines who would like to learn about the human user/operator side of a system. This course is intended as a survey of the field of human factors psychology. Specifically, the principles of psychology from various specialty areas (e.g., cognitive, experimental, industrial/organizational, physiological etc.) will be applied to the study of human performance in work settings. Students will learn how work is designed to capitalize on cognitive and physical capabilities and compensate for limitations of humans. Students will also become familiar with the tools and techniques that human factors psychologists use to study human-machine interaction and work design.

Course Content: Course topics include information processing, cognitive workload, sustained attention, signal detection, spatial abilities, virtual environments, safety, warnings, displays and controls, decision making, and stress. The instructor will draw on real world examples of human factors principles and provide demonstrations. Also, the class may go on tours of local organizations (e.g., Champion, NAMRL, IHMC) to observe human factors psychology in both research and practice.

Requirements: Students will be graded on 2 essay exams (25% each), a research paper (25%), and a design project with presentation (25%).

Design project: Students will find and photograph or describe a system they believe to have design flaws. Each student will present the design and describe the human factors principles that have been violated and propose how the design can be improved. The findings will be presented to the class in a 10-15 minute presentation using the student’s medium of choice.
Click here for my own personal example of a bad design or visit the Bad Designs Website

Research Paper: Students will write an 8-12 page (APA style) paper addressing an area of interest to them. They will review research addressing that area and propose a topic of research.