Matt Smith from Cohort 4 describes his recent visit to the Ergonomics & Human Factors Conference.
The purpose of this event was to bring together PhD students with human factors and ergonomics projects and go through different part of a PhD including writing techniques, planning and procrastinations. Each of the 11 attendees had to give a ten-minute presentation on their research and progress and were asked engaging and relevant questions afterwards.
I created a presentation that covered my progress so far including a breakdown of the design methods I intended to use, visuals that I had generated from data gleaned from my semi-structured systematic literature review and the current work I am doing around the wearables which I am looking to design. My presentation won the prize for ‘most ascetical presentation’ earning me a signed copy of Introduction to Human Factors and Ergonomics, Fourth Edition by Robert Bridger and a cap. I received advice regarding previous works I should study and was asked questions about how I was planning to conduct my first study with critical design pieces.
The majority of the participants were human factors researchers with backgrounds in psychology. This included several participants from Nottingham University currently engaged in pursuing research relating to transport and one individual from Sweden who was studying wearables in personal lighting plans. I was the only attendee with a background in design.
