• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.429-435
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• 2013

Objective: This study aims to analyze job satisfaction and accident prevention according to job rotation system types in a motor company. Background: The study of a motor company's job rotation system has come to attention with enhancing productivity, preventing musculoskeletal disorders, and improving quality. Method: In this study, a survey was conducted to show job satisfaction rates according to job rotation systems. Also an investigation was done regarding industrial accidents and previous workers who are receiving treatment for musculoskeletal disorder over the last five years. Results: The job rotation system in this study has been carried out by voluntary decision of workers. Out of the job rotation types, the medium rotation complexity type had high job satisfaction whereas in a high or low rotation complexity type, which many workers prefer, led to less number of accidents and days of sick leave. Application: The results of this study are expected to be a fundamental data to job design.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.259-266
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• 2013

Objective: This study aims to evaluate the workloads of industrial and automobile storage battery industries and their association to biological exposure indices. Background: Occupational lead exposure at battery manufacturing workplace is the most serious problem in safety and health management. Method: We surveyed 145 workers in 3 storage battery industries. Environmental factors(lead in air, temperature, humidity and vibration)), biological exposure indices(lead in blood and zinc protoporphyrin in blood) and individual workload factors(process type, work time, task type, weight handling and restrictive clothing) were measured in each unit workplace. Results/Conclusion: Air lead concentration is statistically significant in associations with workload factors(process type, work time, task type, and restrictive clothing) and environmental factors (humidity and vibration), whereas zinc protoporphyrin in blood are significantly associated with work time and weight handling. And lead in blood is significantly associated with work time, weight handling and temperature. Application: The results of this study are expected to be a fundamental data to job design.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.3-9
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• 1982

This study demonstrates that certain personal and task factors can be modelled to predict slip potential as well as back loadings durings dynamic pushing and pulling tasks. Such tasks are com- mon to many manual material handling jobs in industry and the results of this work will hopefully be of use in improved job design. The objective of this research is to formulate and validate a dynamic biomechanical model of pushing and pulling a cart. For pushing and pulling tasks, the model can : (1) estimate foot forces for given hand forces, and (2) estimate tors muscle and vertabral column loadings. In order to formulate and validate the model, experiments involving pushing and pulling of a cart were performed. These experiments produced data of the following type : (1) dynamic forces on the feet, (2) hand forces required to move the cart, (3) body motions as functions of various cart motion and (4) back muscle actions. The model was validated using three different methods; precision was tested using correlation between predicted and measured results, accuracy using standard error between of predicted and measured results, and intuitive comparison of predicted results using sensitivity analyses.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.9-24
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• 1987

The design and philosophy are presented for an intelligent aid for a hyman operator who must diagnose a novel fault in a physical system. A novel fault is defined as one that the operator has not experienced in either real system operation or training. When the operator must diagnose a novel fault, deep reasoning about the behavior of the system components is required. To aid the human operator in this situation, four aiding approaches which provide useful information are proposed. The aiding information is generated by a qualitative, component-level model of the physical system. Both the aid and the human are able to reason causally about the system in a cooperative search for a diagnosis. The aiding features were designed to help the hyman's use of his/her mental model in predicting the normal system behavior, integrating the observations into the actual system behavior, or finding discrepancies between the two. The aid can also have direct access to the operator's hypotheses and run a hypothetical system model. The different aiding approaches will be evaluated by a series of experiments.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.331-338
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• 2011

Objective: The present study developed a comprehensive usability testing and analysis framework based on a physical interface model of product and user and applied the proposed framework to usability testing of canister-type vacuum cleaner. Background: The development of a user-centered product design is important to satisfy customers who want to use the product with ease of use and to keep the manufacturer competitive in the market. Method: The proposed testing and analysis framework consists of (1) characterization of physical product-user interface, (2) preparation and administration of usability testing questionnaire, and (3) analysis and interpretation of usability testing results. A usability evaluation of five vacuum cleaners was planned and administered based on the proposed framework and its analysis produced detailed and overall usability testing results for various aspects such as tasks, usability criteria, and design components. Results: The testing results were further utilized to identify usability problems and preferred design features of the vacuum cleaners. Conclusion: The proposed usability testing and analysis framework was found effective to identify preferred features and problems of a product design in a systematic, holistic manner. Application: The proposed framework can be of effective use for practitioners of product design and development to obtain comprehensive, quantitative usability testing information in a systematic manner.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.189-198
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• 2013

Objective: This research was carried out to study the menu type design of instrument cluster IVIS(In Vehicle Information System) for efficient navigation under deconcentrated situations. Background: A driver controls the IVIS menu using the rest of cognitive resources while driving a car. Although a driver controls the IVIS using extra cognition resources, his or her distraction can still cause some safety problems while driving. Menu type design of instrument cluster is absolutely important for safe and efficient navigation. Method: Four menu types including paging, flow, icon, and list type were identified through reviewing the existing IVIS of vehicle and the menu structure of cellular phone. Four menu types were evaluated through experiment. The experiment consisted of primary and secondary task, which the primary task was to simulate a driving and the secondary task was to control an IVIS menu prototype. Task performances, menu type preferences, and eye-movement patterns were measured in this experiment. Results: The result shows that icon type was the best design in aspect of task performance and preference. A clue for next menu item provided a positive effect for efficient menu navigation. It was identified that most of subjects gazed the middle-top area of IVIS screen from eye-movement pattern. Conclusion: A basic design of Instrument Cluster IVIS was proposed considering the result of this study in the final. Application: The results of this study can be effectively used in the design of Instrument Cluster IVIS.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.593-599
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• 2012

Objective: This study aims to implement a non-contact gesture-based interface for presentation purposes and to analyze the effect of the proposed interface as information transfer assisted device. Background: Recently, research on control device using gesture recognition or speech recognition is being conducted with rapid technological growth in UI/UX area and appearance of smart service products which requires a new human-machine interface. However, few quantitative researches on practical effects of the new interface type have been done relatively, while activities on system implementation are very popular. Method: The system presented in this study is implemented with KINECT$^{(R)}$ sensor offered by Microsoft Corporation. To investigate whether the proposed system is effective as a presentation support tool or not, we conduct experiments by giving several lectures to 40 participants in both a traditional lecture room(keyboard-based presentation control) and a non-contact gesture-based lecture room(KINECT-based presentation control), evaluating their interests and immersion based on contents of the lecture and lecturing methods, and analyzing their understanding about contents of the lecture. Result: We check that whether the gesture-based presentation system can play effective role as presentation supporting tools or not depending on the level of difficulty of contents using ANOVA. Conclusion: We check that a non-contact gesture-based interface is a meaningful tool as a sportive device when delivering easy and simple information. However, the effect can vary with the contents and the level of difficulty of information provided. Application: The results presented in this paper might help to design a new human-machine(computer) interface for communication support tools.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.35-49
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• 2009

This study investigated perceived discomforts and those reasons of the young and middle-aged, the aged, the disabled and the pregnant in various daily activities, and elicited universal design factors based on human capacities (physical, sensory, cognitive and affective). A total of eighty people (twenty subjects for each user group) participated in one-to-one interviews about thirty six items of daily activities. A degree of discomfort of the daily activities was measured using Borg's CR10 scale. As a result, the disabled and the pregnant complained about almost all of the daily activities, and their degrees of discomforts were significantly higher than those of the youth and middle-aged and the aged. However, the youth and middle-aged and the aged only complained about some specific items. The major reasons of discomforts were related to physical and affective capabilities in general, where the detailed reasons of each user group were comparatively different. Finally, the universal design factors were elicited for each daily activity item based on the results of each user group. This study can be used to understand the discomforts and characteristics of the aged, the disabled and the pregnant in the various daily activities. The universal design factors elicited can also be applied to design related products and facilities universally.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.77-83
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• 2012

Objective: The aim of this paper is to introduce a method that can measure and analyze the judgment gaps between service providers and customers. Background: It is important to understand the good service that service providers and customers are thinking. If there is judgment gap between service providers and customers, it would cause an unsatisfactory service. The judgment gap should be thoroughly investigated for a good service design. Method: Lens model is a human decision making model that was proposed by Brunswick(1952). This study indicates whether the Lens model can be applied to analyze judgment gaps between service providers and customers. As a case study, a library lending service was selected. 5 librarians and 15 customers participated in the experiment that investigates their judgments on a good service. The obtained data were analyzed by a modified lens model. Results: Cue weighting policies of consumers and service providers were similar, except that consumers gave higher weight on tangibility than service providers. Service providers and consumers had a good knowledge on the service quality, but they could not well apply the knowledge to judge it. Conclusion: The lens model may be used to analyze judgment gaps between service providers and consumers in the other service areas. The decision cues that were used in this study can be changed, depending on the characteristics of the target service. Application: The method that is proposed in this study may help to investigate and analyze both consumers' and service providers' judgments on a variety of services.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.63-76
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• 2012

Objective: The main objective of this study is to propose a user-centered assessment metric for ubiquitous services. Background: As the ubiquitous era took off, the interactions between ubiquitous services and users have come to take an important position. It is essential to conceptualize a new assessment model that considers human-system interaction capability with a user-centered design perspective. Method: The evaluation model for the interactivity of ubiquitous service was approached from the concept of usability and inter-personality of services. As a validation study, suggested assessment metric was utilized to evaluate the u-Home service. Priority weighting of each assessment metric was derived using the quantification type-I analysis. Results: To evaluate interactivity, this study suggested a quantitative metric for user testing performed after classifying the interactivity characteristics to contextualization; ubiquity; user experience; and service capability. Conclusion: This study suggest the metric for the ubiquitous service that are experienced in real life, and introduced the concept of ubiquitous service interactivity. Application: The suggested evaluation metric can be used to evaluate interactivity level of ubiquitous service and identify the potential problem and usability requirements at the early stage of service development.