BO-75-04-4 -- Human Factors in Product Safety Research PDF

Traditionally, members of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers have been vitally concerned with the safety of their products. With this concern for safety in mind, design engineers have attempted to use available information to develop new and safer products. However, in 1974, 3 product categories of particular interest to ASHRAE were listed among the top 50 product categories on the Consumer Product Hazard Index (which lists over 400 product categories) compiled by the U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). These product categories were space heaters and heating stoves (15th), furnaces and floor furnaces (38th), and water heaters (39th). In addition, refrigerators and freezers, air conditioners, and humidifiers ranked among the top 200 products (73rd, 129th, and 154th, respectively). The current paper suggests that more attention to human factors considerations might better enable design engineers to reduce hazards associated with their products.

Human factors in the context of this paper refers to the interaction of a person with a product and with the use environment. Traditionally, human factors psychology, or human engineering, has involved the study of the person-machine relationship so that machines could be designed for most efficient use by the operator. In product safety research, human factors addresses a complex person-product-environment interaction as a system where the concern is for a very low probability event, i.e., accident. In this system, factors such as anthropometry, reaction time, social context, physiological state, risk perception, knowledge of safe practices, and informational systems must all be considered. The hazards associated with products are defined with regard to the potential effect on the human. The environment is a factor within the system which may contribute to the occurrence of an accident.