Project Design FAQ
1) Why dont you recommend analyzing something that I use every day? Because you are
considered an expert user at that point, and you may not see a product or a process for all of the
faults that you have overcome since first using it. It generally takes a fresh eye to see many
design flaws.
2) What is a Process? (Process vs. Product)
A process refers to the set of steps or tasks necessary to complete some goal. To register for
classes there is a process. Any given process might require you to interact with a particular
product - such as a particular software or machine. For the design project, call what you are
analyzing a "process" if you are analyzing the set of steps or tasks required to achieve a goal.
Call what you are analyzing the product, if your focus is just on the software itself or a machine,
or consumer product. Also you can bound the process of something tightly or wide. For example,
let's take registering for classes. The ENTIRE process requires you to know what you've taken,
know what you need, analyzing your DARS, look up classes available, determine if they meet
your needs or satisfy other goals, select classes, register. But, each of those things I listed has its
own process. Analyzing your DARS requires you to get to a computer with internet access, go to
correct website, log in, review your DARs and understand your DARS. For the
design project, when you choose a process to analyze you can choose a large process that
contains many processes, smaller or just a small process. Either is fine.
3) What is Macroergonomics?
The first day of class (or second - but in the first lecture) we had a definition, which used the
words "organizational ergonomics". There you will find the formal definition. In a nutshell, this
is anything that
involves more than just one person and one machine, but the design you are analyzing is good or
flawed because of interactions with other levels of the particular system. So, analyzing the
software a doctor uses to look up medical records is not a macroergonomic topic, but analyzing
why the doctor is rushed during the visit because of the scheduling system that books only 15
minutes visits in order to make the clinic more money IS macroergonomic because you are
saying that higher level decisions (make money) affected the scheduling system design, which in
turn rushes the doctor.
So to call something macroergonomic is to say that what you are saying is good or bad about the
design involves in some way the design of higher level issues and how they affect the people
who do the work.
4) I talked to someone in class and they made it sound like marcoergonomics only referred to an
assembly line in an assembly plant. Is that true? NO. Has nothing to do with any particular
domain.
5) Can I email you a copy of the project? NO, but you can submit a draft online by April 13th to
receive my feedback on as little or as much of the project that you decide to complete before
then.