Importance of Human Factors Engineering in Medical Device Domain

Ergonomics (or human factors) is the 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 to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.

Human Factors Engineering is the application of knowledge about human behaviour, abilities, limitations, and other characteristics of medical device users to the design of medical devices including mechanical and software driven user interfaces, systems, tasks, user documentation, and user training to enhance and demonstrate safe and effective use.

The terms Human factors engineering (HFE) and usability engineering (UE) can be considered to be synonymous.