The term ergonomics was coined by Wojciech Jastrzębowski in 1857 to mean “the science of work”1 with the goal of improving productivity and profit. He described the importance of physical, emotional, entertainment, and rational aspects of the labor and employee experience, but the context was squarely on factory-type production.
Over time, this has evolved into two, slightly different definitions.
Workplace safety
In the United States, ergonomics is most often associated with equipment or workplace design. An “ergonomic” computer mouse is supposedly more comfortable and less likely to result in repetitive strain injury. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) provide guidance for workplace design to reduce the risk of occupational injury.
This definition is a subset of human factors engineering (HFE) that may be also called occupational health and safety. It’s related to anthropometrics (the study of human body measurements) and industrial engineering.
Human factors engineering
Around the world, ergonomics is more often synonymous with HFE. The International Ergonomics Association provides this definition: “scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data, and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance”.
Discussion
These different definitions of the same term came about by parallel evolution driven by broader demand for human engineering.
In the US, the term human factors engineering was coined to describe research into aviation human error during World War II. It began being applied to other industries and grew in scope to encompass a range of related fields. Some ergonomists began practicing HFE while ergonomics continued to focus on workplace impacts and fell under the umbrella of human factors.
The same demand existed for human engineering around the world for aviation and then computers, but the term HFE wasn’t in use. Instead, the application of ergonomics expanded to meet the need. This has lead to the different terms being used in different parts of the world.
Footnotes:
- The Outline of Ergonomics, i.e. Science of Work, Based on the Truths Taken from the Natural Science, originally published in Polish