Human Factors Midterm & Final Projects

Throughout my time in the human factors program at Tufts, I have been challenged in a multitude of ways to complete human factors projects on a short timeline. Many of these projects take the form of large midterm or final exams for my classes. Below is a selection of the projects I’m most proud of - showcasing work that doesn’t fall under its own dedicated page.

. Ergonomics in Design

. Ergonomics in Design

Professor Nick Katis | Fall, 2024

This was a two-week, three-person group project where we needed to compare the design and dimensions three brands of a household product with each other. This project had the following objectives:

  • Pick a product (computer mouse) and find three brands

  • Decide which body dimensions correlate to usage (hand measurements)

  • Find public datasets with related body measurements & percentiles

  • Analyze each mouse’s features’ intended designs

  • Measure each mouse’s relevant dimensions and compare to relevant human body measurement percentiles (5th percentile female and 95th percentile male)

  • Compare the three brands

Comparison of Ergonomics of Household Product Brands

. Human-Machine System Design

. Human-Machine System Design

Professor Dan Hannon | Fall, 2023

This cumulative project involved choosing a human-machine system that I experienced in my life and then apply three analytical perspectives to it from class. I chose to analyze my Apple Watch, and the project included the following components:

  • Workflow & Task Analysis

    • Workflow diagram

    • Task analysis

    • Observations and recommendations

  • Automation

    • System constraints

    • Task allocation

    • Automation levels

    • Trust and arbitration

  • Signal Detection Theory

Semester Project

This exam was a week-long individual project that involved choosing an expert, analyzing their task, introducing automation, and then re-analyzing the task. I chose the artist Ashley Gibson, who crafts “Mushling” dolls by hand. The project included the following:

  • Interviewing the expert to analyze their task

  • Creating a pre-automation workflow diagram

  • Creating a post-automation task analysis diagram

  • Creating a post-automation workflow diagram

  • Completing a human-machine system breakdown

  • Creating a human-machine system diagram

  • Analyzing and graphing automation levels and stages

  • Analyzing and documenting trust between entities, autonomy, and arbitration

Midterm Exam 1

This exam was a week-long, open-book, open-notes exam with questions related to the following concepts:

  • Fitts’ Law

  • Information Theory

  • Hick Hyman Law

  • Signal Detection Theory

For a complete list of exam questions, click here.

Midterm Exam 2

This exam was a week-long individual project that involved answering several questions about the class’s contents. The project included the following:

  • Cognitive load, including intrinsic, extrinsic, and germane loads

  • Instructional support needs and design changes

  • Workload and human performance, including metrics and measurements

  • Challenges for automation

  • An analysis of an in-class smart motor activity including workflow, cognitive load, signal detection theory, trust in automation, human-machine task allocation

  • Information theory

Final Exam

. Consumer Psychology

. Consumer Psychology

Professor James Intriligator | Spring, 2024

This project was the first portion of a consumer psychology project, requiring me to find a poster “in the wild” and analyze it from a consumer psychology perspective. I found a poster in a jetbridge that advertised IHG Hotels & Resorts. From there, I analyzed its:

  • Goals

  • Demographics

  • Psychographics

  • Design features (font, color, composition)

  • Contents

  • Placement

  • Data that could be collected about the poster & how

You can view the presentation here.

Product & Packaging Analysis

After analyzing the poster, we were asked to select a product from our lives and analyze its packaging. I chose a Johnny Was blanket due to its unique no-waste bag. My presentation on the blanket included the following:

  • Product and packaging description

  • Product background

  • Product location & store

  • Consumer profile including demographics and psychographics

  • Product appeals and challenges

  • Recommendations for improvements

  • Data that could be collected about the product and how

  • Storyboard

You can view the presentation here.

Poster Analysis

Poster vs. Product & Packaging Analysis

Projects 1 and 2, the poster and product/packaging, led into project 3: a comparison presentation of the two. In this presentation, I analyzed the following for both items:

  • Initial observations

  • Intended vs. true audiences

  • Intended impressions & approaches to achieving impressions

  • Similarities and differences in potential data collection and methodology

You can view the presentation here.

. Methods for Human Factors Engineering

. Methods for Human Factors Engineering

Professor Dan Hannon | Spring, 2022

This exam was a week-long individual project that involved creating hypothetical exam questions for a series of topics covered in class and then answering them. Topics covered on the exam included the following:

  • Knowledge elicitation

  • Anthropometry

  • Biomechanics

  • Heuristic review

  • Mental workload

  • Error analysis

  • User testing

  • Mental models

Final Exam

. Applied Behavioral Statistics

. Applied Behavioral Statistics

Professor Daniel Hannon | Fall, 2023

This exam was a week-long project that involved choosing an empirical article to analyze from a statistical perspective. Using my knowledge of R from the class, I needed to complete the following objectives:

  • Choose an article with a robust data set and analysis

  • Characterize the data and consider its validity and how easily it can be cleaned in R

  • Decide if the authors make their case statistically

  • Describe the within or between-subjects design and how challenging it would be to switch

  • Consider how to modify the analysis to include an ANOVA and linear regression, as well as how we would interpret the results

  • Describe one other lasting concept I learned

Final Exam

This final project was a week-long project that involved running a “small-n experiment,” or an experiment with a very small number of participants, and then using R to conduct a statistical analysis to either accept or reject the null hypothesis. My chosen experiment involved two conditions; one where the participants typed as fast as they could on a typing test alone, and one where the participants typed as fast as they could while competing with a researcher. The project included the following components:

  • Choose a study and create an experimental procedure

  • Conduct the study

  • Export the data and clean it if necessary

  • Use R to analyze the .csv file

  • Accept or reject the null hypothesis (competition makes people type faster than individually) and then describe why

Final Project