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Current Research Topics
Current Research Topics
Please refer to the guidelines for preparing and submitting a proposal, which can be found here.
OERC Areas of Interest
Outcomes
Productivity
Productivity has been challenging to measure for knowledge workers, but is important to understand because it gives a measurement that could affect a company’s profitability. Understanding how ergonomic design, setup, or strategies affect productivity can provide the end users and companies with these valuable measures.Behaviors
How do you get workers to change behavior and make it sustainable? How can you optimize the use of the hardware, software, or real-time exposure for productivity? How can you collect data that is more objective, accurate, and helps to shape behaviors?Factors
Technology
The term technology is not limited to current computing devices but includes software, furniture, fitness monitoring/wearable devices, smart buildings, etc., as well as new computing devices and new ways of interacting with technology. How does changing technology affect the ergonomic risks or effects in the office environment? How can technology be used to improve assessment of ergonomic effects, help change worker behavior, or improve outcomes?Environments
The workplace environment is changing and is no longer just a landscape of traditional workspaces (closed offices, cubicles, etc.). People work in many different locations: work, conference rooms, shared spaces, cafes, home, or public transportation. The office environment is not the only place for the ergonomic challenges—they can also occur in healthcare, higher education, and other workplaces.Demographics and Office Factors
There may be compounding factors in understanding the effects and risks of ergonomics. Some of those include (but are not limited to): age, nationality, office culture, type of work performed, gender, where people work (cubicle, open area, café, hotel, etc.), how they work (standing, sitting), and time of exposures. These are important factors to consider in the design of research.
OERC 2024 Research Topics:
The OERC has created the following list of Research Priorities for 2024. In each of the priorities, we are interested in understanding the “human factors/ergonomic effects” on productivity and/or behavior for each topic and practical recommendations for applying the research findings. The term effects can encompass both positive and negative effects (benefits/risks).
NOTE: The research priorities are presented in random order. Position on the list does not indicate importance, and all topics should be considered as of equal interest to OERC.
- What are the human factor/ergonomics effects of the latest input technologies or interactive input methods such as gestures, eye-tracking, voice and multi-modal input on performance, mouse design, comfort, and usability? How will users know which device or modality is the most appropriate for the tasks performed, and how can the user interface be optimized for the selected input method?
- What human factors/ergonomic issues need to be considered in workplace design to support new and changing technologies such as collaboration tools, mobile devices, AR, VR, AI Artificial Intelligence?
- What are the human factors/ergonomics factors that need to be addressed concerning AR/VR and AI display characteristics?
- What are the HFE effects of the physical and visual environment factors, including lighting, glare and noise requirements, and the associated health, comfort, and well-being issues?
- What are the human factors/ergonomics effects of artificial intelligent (AI) assistants or machine learning (ML) algorithms and what new challenges do they pose to workers? How can data analytics or telemetry from these AI or ML tools be used across user populations to positively impact organizational decision making to reduce physical exposures and increase productivity? How is the data privacy being addressed in companies and what training is effective to best maintain data security?
- Are there features of office design and/or organizational policies that can reduce symptoms, and enhance worker’s well-being and performance to create a profitable, healthy and sustainable organization? Are there key human factors/ergonomic principles that might apply to effectively design a post-COVID office hybrid work arrangement/program regarding safety, well-being, team, and group work? Field studies with mid to long-term exposure measures are of particular interest.
- What macroergonomics interventions are effective on managing and reducing employee’s workload, psychosocial stress, fatigue, burnout, and presenteeism/absenteeism as well as enhancing performance? What programmatic work system mechanisms or approaches could be designed and implemented to better manage and sustain employee’s well-being, health, safety, and performance? Factors such as organizational policies, job design, environmental and social factors, and technology components along with their systematic interactions should be considered in the proposed field study.
- How can HFE training and support resources, such as software, wearables, etc., and/or are effective to reduce risk of injury in knowledge workers by reducing exposure, and/or to increase productivity, well-being, and health.
