From ergonauts to infonauts: 50 years of ergonomics research

摘要

At the start of the era of ergonomics, Sir Frederic Bartlett (1962), with remarkable and unmatched foresight based on his long experience, signalled specific problems for the ergonomist, the 'ergonaut' in his words, in the years to come. Thus, 45 years ago, the importance of Information Theory for ergonomics was well-predicted by Bartlett, while in my view the next period will be even more information-dependent than he could imagine. In 1962, the minimising powers of the industry with respect to central processing part of the computer, the 'chip', could not be predicted, not even by Bartlett.