Incorporating Human Factors Into a Capstone Senior Design Program to Benefit Individuals with Disabilities

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe how a multidisciplinary senior design sequence incorporates human factors and ergonomics to address projects that benefit individuals with disabilities. The approach exposes students to the problems that surface when using human factors and ergonomics tools and data to solve engineering and design problems that contain a human component. While some engineering students receive exposure to human factors and ergonomics in classroom settings, the senior design sequence is the first time that many students on the multidisciplinary design teams face the challenge of designing for humans, particularly for the unique demands that may be associated with individuals who have a disability. The paper provides an overview of the process and presents several case studies to demonstrate some of the challenges that have been met by the student teams and the approaches that have been taken.