Use of human engineering standards in design

Results are presented for a research study intended to assess the impact of present human engineering standards on product design. The approach consisted of three basic steps: a comparison of two display panels to determine if, in fact, products designed to the same standards are truly standardized; a review of two existing standards to determine how well their information can be used to solve design problems; and a survey of human factors specialists to assess their opinions about standards. It is shown that standards have less than the desired influence on product design. This is evidenced by a lack of standardization between hardware designed under common standards, by deficiencies within the standards that detract from their usefulness and encourage users to ignore them, and by the respondents of the survey who consider standards less valuable than other reference sources for design implementation. Recommendations aimed at enhancing the use of standards are set forth.