Human factors can look very different in different jobs. Here are some sample job advertisements…
Human Factors Researcher
Researchers work to answer the most challenging questions in design. In this role, you will reveal what our users need from our products by conducting primary research, exploring the behaviors and motivations of our users, and working with teams of Designers, Product Managers, Engineers and others to develop new features. You’ll inspire change at all stages of product development by delivering exciting oral, written and visual presentations about our findings. Most importantly, your job as a researcher is to help the UX team understand what would make a user’s experiences feel more intuitive, accessible, fun—and even magical.
With considerable experience, you evaluate all the features contributing to user experience, providing expertise, collaborating internally and occasionally leading projects. You contribute new processes and identify product and use requirements.
Nested within the Industrial Design team, the Human Factors (HF) practice aims to provide hands-on research insights that directly impact design decisions and strategic planning. Our focus is to make sure our portfolio products fit into people’s lifestyle by being intuitive, purposeful and comfortable to use.
We are passionate about finding out how users understand, wear, store, share, integrate the most indispensable objects in their life. In addition to looking at user research through a physical lense (ergonomics/ human factors, anthropometry, biomechanics), we also strive to learn everything we can about users’ goals and needs, attitudes and emotions to help define the products and experiences we create. HF is one of the critical driving forces behind gathering these insights and then using them to inspire and inform design. We collaborate closely with Design, Engineering and Product Management to create innovative, usable, great-looking products that people love to use.
As a HF Researcher, you will have the opportunity to support our practice in developing innovative, user-friendly products. You are a Human Factors expert with excellent communication skills, and are diligent, detail-oriented and can work independently.
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Only one thing consistently stands in the way between our users and the world’s information – hardware. Our Hardware team researches, designs, and develops new technologies and hardware to make our user’s interaction with computing faster, more powerful, and seamless. Whether finding new ways to capture and sense the world around us, advancing form factors, or improving interaction methods, our Hardware team is making people’s lives better through technology.
- Conduct literature reviews, run competitive analyses, design, run and interpret qualitative and quantitative user studies.
- Manage studies for HF and ergonomics/UX/UI/usability studies, Out Of the Box Experience (OOBE) studies and early exploration contextual studies in the field.
- Prepare user testing activities (e.g. create screener, recruit participants, lab setup, coordinate support materials, etc).
- Run user research sessions in lab or in the field; convey findings and formulate recommendations with a strong point of view; establish rapport with stakeholders, understand their requests and present research findings that address their questions.
- Collaborate with other Researchers on reviewing study plans, suggesting methodologies, assisting with data analysis.
Minimum qualifications:
- BA/BS degree in Industrial Design, Product Design or Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
- 3 years of experience conducting user research.
- 1 year of experience working with hardware and/or wearables.
- Experience working with anthropometric databases, and with qualitative and experimental research methods.
Preferred qualifications:
- Master’s degree in Human Factors with a focus on physical ergonomics.
- Familiarity with basic graphic and video editing tools; Understanding of statistical methods’ strengths and weaknesses.
- Understanding of strengths and shortcomings of different qualitative and experimental research methods, including when and how to apply them during each product development phase.
- Ability to operate independently, with flexibility and prioritize time between multiple projects.
- Ability to understand the strategic impact of contribution to overall project. Ability to anticipate the needs of a team and escalate them to manager.
- Excellent observational, interpersonal, oral and written communication, as well as collaboration skills.
- Support the dev team in the creative process across research, ideation, and validation phases. Understand customers’ unmet needs and motivations, develop actionable customer personas, and design and execute rigorous customer research studies to inform product development decisions.
- Actively and routinely share data-based, forward-thinking market, competitive and audience insights.
- Collaborate with other user researchers in the consolidation, analysis and presentation of insights to ensure a holistic understanding of users and their behaviors and motivations.
- Contribute to building a research organization that leverages shared knowledge and research expertise to deliver actionable and relevant insights that drive tangible product outcomes.
- Experimentation and quantitative lab studies
- Contextual inquiry
- Lab-based usability and attitudinal testing of early prototypes and mechanics to full experiences
- Inferential statistics and statistical modeling of large data sets
- Interviewing & focus groups
- Development of UX heuristics and conducting product and build evaluations
- Passionate about understanding what drives companies and people to use, depend on, and love technology
- Comfortable working with a “blank sheet of paper” and can deal with ambiguity
- Can figure out how to measure things that are hard to measure – like “need” or “fun”
- An effective storyteller in both written and oral modes
- Successful track record of working collaboratively with teams
- Experience in experimental design, observation techniques, knowledge elicitation techniques, survey design
- Support the dev team in the creative process across research, ideation, and validation phases. Understand customers’ unmet needs and motivations, develop actionable customer personas, and design and execute rigorous customer research studies to inform product development decisions.
- Actively and routinely share data-based, forward-thinking market, competitive and audience insights.
- Collaborate with other user researchers in the consolidation, analysis and presentation of insights to ensure a holistic understanding of users and their behaviors and motivations.
- Contribute to building a research organization that leverages shared knowledge and research expertise to deliver actionable and relevant insights that drive tangible product outcomes.
- Experimentation and quantitative lab studies
- Contextual inquiry
- Lab-based usability and attitudinal testing of early prototypes and mechanics to full experiences
- Inferential statistics and statistical modeling of large data sets
- Interviewing & focus groups
- Development of UX heuristics and conducting product and build evaluations
- Passionate about understanding what drives companies and people to use, depend on, and love technology
- Comfortable working with a “blank sheet of paper” and can deal with ambiguity
- Can figure out how to measure things that are hard to measure – like “need” or “fun”
- An effective storyteller in both written and oral modes
- Successful track record of working collaboratively with teams
- Experience in experimental design, observation techniques, knowledge elicitation techniques, survey design
ConsenSys is a venture production studio and the leading technology firm in blockchain globally. We deliver products, solutions and platforms built using blockchain technology.
Our teams are busy at work building the future of identity, financial markets, commerce, the music industry, security, and infrastructure, and more. To accomplish this we’ve built out a flat organizational structure which we call the ConsenSys Mesh: a network of individuals & teams working autonomously and towards the same goal. Our mission is to use these decentralized solutions to fundamentally reshape the economic, social, and political operating systems of the planet.
The Design Research practice at ConsenSys is driven by a primary principle, construct curiosity.
Driven by curiosity, our practice is as rigorous about the form of inquiry as it is impassioned. We design with people, ensuring that everything we design is grounded in a deep, contextual understanding of what matters to people. Empathetic and forward-thinking, our objective is to inform and inspire the design of systems, services, and experiences. As pragmatic and applied, our practice enables us to act with intent.
About Ujo at ConsenSys:
Ujo Music is a ConsenSys Spoke, with a vision for a music industry that allows creators to grow and thrive independently. It is a platform that uses the ethereum blockchain as the substrate for innovation by empowering artists, digitizing their music rights and metadata, sharing this information in an open environment, and thus enabling new applications, products, and services to license their catalogs and pay artists directly with minimal friction. We are aiming to enrich the lives of artists and fans through a shared love of music, and excitement for the potential of decentralized technology.
We introduced the music industry to smart contracts & blockchain technology and aim to continue bringing this technology to many artists: from more Grammy winners to more bedroom producers.
Within the Ujo Team:
- We value learning & personal growth.
- We value balance in life. We aim to work hard in improving the industry, but we can only do that if we also take care of ourselves: mentally & physically. Take off time when you need it.
- We strive to be accountable towards ourselves & our teammates: we go further when we go together.
- We value diversity in perspectives. Music reaches everyone & as a team we want to work with individuals from all walks of life.
- We value open, accessible, and constructive communication amongst everyone.
- We value the open source community & contributing towards a shared future.
About the Senior Design Researcher at Ujo:
- Strong communication and documentation skills as well as proven ability to work within a team. We work better together when we strive to communicate as best we can.
- Designing, planning, resourcing, and executing design research
- Identifying research needs in partnership with the product team
- Independently seeking out and identifying opportunities for research to inform strategy
- Understand and incorporate business requirements into research
- Synthesizing and communicating complex findings and insights in appropriate, intelligible, and compelling ways
- Collaborating with multidisciplinary teams to construct and implement insights from research
- Advocating and guiding strategy for design and product direction by telling the user’s story
- Representing ConsenSys within the wider research community, for instance by publishing articles on behalf of ConsenSys and presenting at conferences as a ConsenSys discipline leader.
- Experience conceptualizing and facilitating design research initiatives, from problem identification and evaluation through user engagement, ensuring that insights shape the design of systems and experiences
- Strong strategic, analytical, and creative skills with a history of tackling and solving complex design research opportunities
- Ability to work collaboratively and communicate effectively with teammates, community members, customers, and partners
- Comfort with ambiguity, yet driven to create order out of chaos
- Understanding of digital product design and systems design
- Passion for evolving design research techniques
- Flexibility to see opportunities for design research where others might see constraints
- Degree(s) in design, anthropology, human factors, psychology, human-computer interaction, behavioral science, cognitive science, other social sciences, a related field, or equivalent practical experience
- Extensive professional design/ux research experience; preferably on agile teams
- Extensive professional design experience; preferably as a product designer on agile teams
- Experience leading and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams
- Experience mentoring other design researchers
- Experience with a variety of research methods, collecting and analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data
- Demonstrated understanding of the strengths and shortcomings of diverse research methods, including when and how to deploy them and experiment with novel techniques during the product development process
- Experience with storytelling through various mediums and formats
- Experience applying research insights to create design experiences
We are working in a new, exciting frontier. If you don’t feel that you precisely match the responsibilities of the role outlined above, but still feel that you can contribute to building this future with us, don’t hesitate to apply regardless.
We’d love to talk.
Bonus points for:
Excitement & passion for music, media, and art applications.
Experience working within true agile environments.
Here are some of the perks of being part of a unique organization like ConsenSys:
The forefront of a revolution. At ConsenSys we fundamentally believe that a next generation of technologies presents the opportunity to create a more just and equitable society.
A dynamic startup environment. ConsenSys is a thought leader in the blockchain space and we are absorbing a significant portion of the mindshare. This is both exciting and challenging, as we learn to scale our organization while adhering to the principles of decentralization.
Continuous learning. You’ll be constantly exposed to new languages, frameworks and ideas from your peers and as you work on different projects — challenging you to stay at the top of your game.
Deep technical challenges. This entire ecosystem is about 10 years old. Ethereum itself is still a toddler. There is much work to be done before these platforms can scale to the order of millions or billions of users. ConsenSys is building the technology platforms that ca
Human Factors (usability) Subject Matter Advisor will advise teams and create recommendations related to implementing best practices in usability of technology and reduction of medical errors related to imperfect workflows. This position can be part or full time. The Human Factors (usability) Subject Matter Advisor is required to participatin in and lead advisory councils and focus groups to direct or create deliverables that address (in detail) all aspects of the human usability and ergonmics in clinical informatics. Recommendations and deliverables could include but are not limited to workflow usability assessments; hardware usability assessments; foundational models of human factors and ergonomics (HFE); and potential macroergonomic HFE approaches.
Candidates must have:
- 5-10 years of experience in IT or a field related to ergonimics or human factors
- an understanding of clinical workflows and their translations to IT platforms
- a knowledge of the full care continuum or the ability to quickly discern elements of clinical workflows
- experiences working in high-performing teams and an understanding of how to create / foster such environments
- the ability to be highly productive in a remote work setting
- a resolve to make recommendations that are right and to defend them in a highly inquisitive environment
The desired candidate has:
- led or been involved in complicated systems implementations in a clinical field
- succeded in fast paced environments with tight timelines and many stakeholders
- experience working in an advisory role for projects aligned to a particular mission
- an understanding of how lean concepts can be applied in clinical settings
Looking for a job to get you out of bed?
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- Work directly with a team of industrial designers, design researchers, mechanical engineers and product managers to develop mattress, furniture and soft goods products that enable a good night’s sleep, with a focus on ergonomics and comfort.
- Lead the evaluation of ergonomics and comfort of new and existing Casper products using a combination of experimental, modeling and numerical methods and recommend improvements as needed
- Establish ergonomics and human factors-related standards and develop testing plans for current and future Casper products
- Design and lead human subject research testing sessions
- Work in our San Francisco location, travel required.
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Our dream candidate is…
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- Is passionate about how the human body interacts with physical products, with 7+ years of experience as a human factors or ergonomics engineer/designer
- Demonstrates experience making subjective and objective ergonomic and comfort improvements to existing products on the market
- Has worked on both mechanical comfort and thermal comfort
- Has experience working with a variety of materials, including, but not limited to, polyurethane foam, textiles, upholstery, plastics, sheet metal, and wood
- Supports design decisions with scientific research and experimentation
- Enjoys presenting to small or large groups, and in front of a camera (if needed).
- Is resourceful, creative, and capable of designing within both fuzzy and tight constraints on fast-moving timelines.
- Is a highly motivated self-starter. Flexible, adaptable, and able to work in an entrepreneurial environment.
As a Sr. Human Factors and Usability Engineer at NxStage, you will play a key role in the design, development, use testing, documentation, and launch of NxStage Medical’s flagship products. You will take part in Human Factors & Usability Engineering activities for new product development programs and contribute to usability improvements for current products (sustaining activities), collaborating with a diverse team of engineers and working in a dynamic, fast-paced environment. NxStage products integrate mechanical, electrical, software, and fluidic elements, and include interactions with both wet and dry disposables components
Key Responsibilities:
- Serving as a patient / customer advocate in helping NxStage realize its vision for delivering game-changing products that are safe & effective, easy to use, not prone to use error, and provide user satisfaction; ultimately supporting NxStage’s goal of extremely low burden of care
- Supporting Product Management and Product Engineering personnel in establishing ergonomic, human factors (HF), and usability-related requirements for new products and product line extensions.
- Supporting ethnographic research, usability testing, individual interviews, and group interviews
- Analyzing quantitative and qualitative data to inform design decisions and risk analyses
- Contributing to user interface designs by providing heuristic design guidance, ideas, and feedback to project teams
- Supporting documentation review and development, including but not limited to risk analyses, user/environment profiles, task analyses, use specifications and Human Factors Engineering reports to support regulatory filings
- Drafting uFMEAs; collaborating with Systems Engineering in identifying intended users and use environments, as well as potential use-related hazards; determine product use cases and identify critical user tasks
- Analyzing complaints from on-market products for usability-related issues.
- Flexibility with a range of product interfaces from software GUIs, hardware/fluid connectors to workstations
- Representing the Human Factors/Usability Engineering function on core teams for small to medium sized projects
- Collaborating with internal & external parties in planning, structuring, recruiting for, and executing formative and summative usability evaluations
- Working knowledge of the implementation of all relevant HF & usability-related standards and guidance documents (ANSI/AAMI/ISO 14971, AAMI/ANSI HE75, ANSI/AAMI/IEC 62366, IEC 60601, etc.)
- The physical demands and work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
- Approximately 20-25% travel is expected of this position.
- BS in a relevant Engineering discipline (or equivalent in a technical/scientific field); MS is a plus.
- 5+ years experience in Human Factors / Usability engineering with a BS or 3+ years experience with a MS; and/or product design, development, or testing; experience with class II medical device products is preferred
- Ability to communicate and present effectively
- Ability to interface with customers in a highly professional manner
- Excellent technical communication skills and attention to detail, including creating and editing technical research, analyses, protocols, and reports
- Ability to analyze and synthesize large quantities of information into usable communications.
- Ability to prioritize and multi-task in a fast-paced, collaborative work environment
- Basic understanding of system, electrical, and mechanical design, as well as software integration.
- Prior experience with complex electro-mechanical systems preferred, especially systems having fluidic and/or disposable components is a bonus
- Experience supporting: formative and summative usability evaluations (structuring, recruiting for, conducting, and reporting on), especially involving class II or III medical devices
- Experience working with third-party service providers and external certification labratories is a bonus
- Working experience with medical device design and development processes that conform to standards including: ISO 9000, ISO 13485, IEC 62304, IEC 60601, IEC 62366, and ISO 14971.
Radius (A Jabil Company) is a global strategy and innovation consulting firm serving the IoT, Digital, consumer, healthcare, packaging, and commercial/industrial markets. At Radius, our secret ingredient is our people. We hire talented individuals with a passion for delivering results that know how to discover, design, develop, and deliver products that are better than anything on the market today. We build multi-disciplinary teams of business strategists, researchers, designers, human factors specialists, engineers, quality, and manufacturing experts who thrive on solving our clients’ most complex challenges for bringing successful products to market.
Join our award-winning team if you want to sharpen your skills and geek out on a variety of projects. It goes without saying; we offer a dynamic, fast-paced work environment with plenty of growth opportunities, excellent compensation, and benefits.
JOB SUMMARY
The position of Human Factors Specialist is responsible for executing meaningful research and human factors activities required to drive innovative programs, clients, and teams. Radius is looking for a highly creative and passionate individual to focus on projects ranging from technology-driven medical devices to consumer lifestyle products with an underlying goal of improving lives. The Human Factors Specialist will interface with internal team members and clients to execute research plans and create deliverables to inform and inspire stakeholders.
JOB DESCRIPTION
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Program Management
- Lead research programs to investigate target users’ workflow, goals, tasks, and experiences
- Plan and schedule research studies and usability tests in an organized and detailed manner while adapting to changes in program schedule and scope
Technical Expertise
- Perform human factors, heuristic, and ergonomic analyses
- Plan, design, and execute usability evaluations of products and applications including vendor coordination
- Develop rigorous frameworks for the evaluation of products as a function of usability principles and best practices
- Familiarity with FDA guidelines and other relevant experience in medical product design
Toolbox
- Anthropometric analyses and assessments
- Observational/ethnographic studies usability test moderation, analysis, and reporting
- Task analysis and workflow mapping
- Diary studies
- In-depth interview moderation (in-person and remote)
EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS
- Bachelor’s degree in a related field (e.g. human factors, cognitive psychology, HCI, ergonomics, industrial engineering, etc.)
- Minimum 2 years of professional experience in human factors research and product development, preferably in a consulting environment
- Experience developing research plans, managing the recruitment process, performing contextual research, performing one-on-one and group interviews, and performing HF testing
- Strong communication skills to support research activities and client-facing presentations
- Superb data collection, analytical, writing, and presentation abilities
- Strong collaborative interpersonal work style
- Ability to work independently with guidance
- Proficient in research presentation tools such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, stat packages, and video editing
PRIMARY FUNCTION:
The Applied Human Factors Engineer will participate in proactive (failure modes effects analysis, technology procurement) and reactive (root cause analysis, apparent cause analysis, common cause analysis) safety functions across Jefferson Health.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:
- Active support of Apparent Cause Analysis, Root Cause Analysis, Common Cause Analysis by collaborating with hospital clinical operations teams to translate lessons learned into clinical practice.
- Active support of failure modes effects analysis and technology procurement by collaborating with hospital clinical operations teams.
- Serve as human factors subject matter expert in clinical process engineering for enterprise-wide clinical operations, strategic initiatives projects;
- Assist clinicians, clinical leaders and administrators to manage and understand human factors measures and to use quantitative and qualitative data analysis to drive fact-based decision making.
- Effectively integrates human factors engineering methods and tools into various Performance Improvement teams and Jefferson High Reliability organizing framework
- Manage multiple medium or single institution scale projects of moderate to high complexity through the entire project life cycle.
- Identification and monitoring of performance metrics, risks, and controls.
- Provide human factors, ergonomics, and human systems integration (HSI) technical expertise and leadership to support a broad, diverse portfolio of initiatives.
- Collaboratively ensure connections to the performance improvement team; support for building HF capability throughout Jefferson; and overall, advance the impact of human factors, human systems thinking, and patient safety in the Jefferson health system
- Independently conduct Human Factors and Ergonomic Analysis including but not limited to cognitive ethnography, cognitive mapping, cognitive load testing, ergonomics analysis,
- Independently conduct system redesign by utilizing resiliency engineering analysis, principles and best practices such as soft modeling (participatory ergonomics, Delphi methodology, alpha/beta testing, FMECA, hazop testing)
- Independently lead human factors projects including usability testing, developing study protocols, quantitative and qualitative data collection, data analysis, and preparation of technical reports. Handles multiple large scale projects simultaneously.
- Interacts with co-workers, visitors, and other staff consistent with the values of Jefferson.
EDUCATIONAL/TRAINING REQUIREMENTS:
Masters degree in human factors engineering or 8 years of experience in related field, human systems engineering, cognitive systems engineering, sociotechnical systems engineering, resiliency engineering, industrial engineering or related field required
EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS:
- 3+ years healthcare consulting experience preferred, facilitating clinical improvement projects in collaboration with healthcare providers utilizing human factors and system engineering and resiliency engineering methodology with a proven track record of strategy implementation. Experience with accident analysis.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
- Mastery of desktop applications, including MS Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Access)
- Fluid working knowledge of statistics, research statistics methodology including SPSS and data analysis
#GD
Jefferson Health delivers state of the art healthcare services to patients throughout the Delaware Valley and southern New Jersey. Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University) provides more than 8,400 full and part-time students from nearly 40 states and 40 countries with 21st century professional education. Combined, we have over 30,000 employees.
Jefferson Health, with 14 hospitals (seven are Magnet designated by the ANCC for nursing excellence) and 40+ outpatient and urgent care locations, offers a broad range of primary and complex, highly specialized care that touches the lives of more than four million patients annually. U.S. News & World Report has ranked Thomas Jefferson University Hospital among the nation’s best in eight specialties. Jefferson Health also includes the NCI designated Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center; it is one of only 70 such centers in the nation.
Thomas Jefferson University has ten colleges and three schools that offer more than 160 undergraduate and graduate programs. Our University is dedicated to inter-professional and transdisciplinary approaches to learning that offer a vibrant and expandable platform for professional education. Through this unique model, we are preparing our students for current and yet to be imagined careers.