Understanding the user beyond ‘common sense’ – teaching Product Ergonomics to design engineering students

• Multidisciplinary frameworks are needed to develop products that fit the human. Ergonomics is a multifaceted field that encompasses physical, cognitive and organizational aspects, and it is therefore a suitable subject to be taught to design engineering students.The objective of this paper was to describe and reflect upon how a systems perspective on Ergonomics is developed and conveyed in a course in Product Ergonomics to engineering students at the Design and Product Development (DPD) programme at Linköping University, Sweden. The paper is based on the authors’ experiences from teaching the course in Product Ergonomicsas well ason 52 students’ written reflections about their view on Ergonomics before and after taking the course.Means and ideas for teaching Ergonomics with a systems perspective included organizing a theoretical introduction into weekly themes and thereafter integrating and applying these themes in a product concept project under supervision of a multidisciplinary teacher team.The paper also reflects on how the systems perspective of Ergonomics is planned for and realized in the intended, implemented and attained curriculum.

• Practitioner Summary: Ergonomics is a multidisciplinary field which is suitable for product development but also may be difficult to grasp. This paper describes and reflects upon how Ergonomics was taught to facilitate the development of a systems view on Ergonomics for engineering students at Linköping University, Sweden.Means for achieving this were to: organize the course in weekly themes in which different knowledge areas within Ergonomics were elaborated, integrate these knowledge areas in a product concept project, and have a multidisciplinary teacher team.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Produktionsteknik, arbetsvetenskap och ergonomi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

systems perspective

university education

product design

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)