The vision of the division Design & Human Factors is that one day, all products, services and workplaces will be designed to enable users to live and work in a meaningful and sustainable way.
We contribute to this vision through:
- adding to the knowledge about the relation between humans and artefacts, as well as the activity-centred design process
- developing methods and tools for studying the relationship between human–artefact, as well as for designing and evaluating safe, sustainable and satisfying products, services and workplaces, and
- disseminating this knowledge and methodology through educating tomorrow’s engineers and through collaboration with societal and industrial partners.
We have developed our expertise on the relationship between humans and technology since mid1970s, and we continuously use it to educate engineers with a user-centred perspective and conduct high-quality research resulting in innovations with real-world impact. Our research is interdisciplinary and is based on behavioural science and design theory, ergonomics/human factors, and theories of complex socio-technical systems.
Four profile areas
Sustainable urban mobility
Addresses how to design an urban transport system, including its vehicles and its service, based on a user perspective.
Healthy work systems and ergonomics
Applies knowledge and methods from the domains of ergonomics/human factors, design, work environment and participative design, to enable comfortable, healthy, safe and inclusive work and workplaces.
Circularity and sustainable product use
Addresses how products, services, and systems can be designed to enable and support people to live their lives in a sustainable way.
Safe and efficient human-machine systems
Deals with the interaction between human and machine in its broadest sense; everything from simple products to complex socio-technical systems. The overall goal is to contribute to the design of technical solutions that are easy to learn, efficient to use, and which result in a positive user experience.
Head of division
- Head of Division, Design & Human Factors, Industrial and Materials Science