Integrating human factors with system development methods: an overview of a structured human factors method

The typical involvement of human factors (HF) only at the evaluation stage of system development often results in poor realisation of HF contributions. By emulating the characteristics of SADMs, a structured HF method that covers the system design cycle is developed. Since the method complies with the requirements of a SADM it is expected to inherit the desirable characteristics of SADMs (e.g. the benefits of systematic analysis and design). Also, by recruiting existing national schemes of SADMs, the communication of HF design products to software engineers is also facilitated. In addition, structured integration of software engineering and HF design could be achieved effectively by integrating a particular SADM with the described structure HF method. To this end, the explicit characteristics of both methods would support the identification of design inter-dependencies between the disciplines. The relevance (e.g. scope and timeliness) and applicability (e.g. format and granularity) of HF inputs with respect to the system design cycle are thus ensured. Consequently, an improved uptake of HF may be expected to accrue