Ergonomics also known as the human factors is in fact a scientific discipline that is primarily concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of in a system. It is in general profession that applies theory, principles, data, and methods to design in order to optimize human the general well-being and overall system performance (definition adopted by the International Ergonomics Association in 2000).
Ergonomists are professionals that contribute to the design and evaluation of the tasks, or jobs, and products, environments and systems in sequence to make them harmonious with the various needs, abilities and limitations of people at the workplace and in turn avoid injuries (IEA, 2000).
The IEA has categorized or divided the field of ergonomics broadly into three different domains, which are physical ergonomics, cognitive ergonomics and organizational ergonomics.
The field of physical ergonomics generally deals with the human body's sensitivity or its responsiveness to the physical and physiological loads in the working environments around us. The relevant topics in this field include manual materials handling, workstation layout, job demands, and risk factors such as the repetition, vibration, force and awkward or static posture. The posture is the leading cause of musculoskeletal disorders in many workers.
Whereas Cognitive ergonomics, which is also, called the engineering psychology, is generally concerned about the mental processes, which are an inherent part of brain or mental work. These include perception, attention, cognition, motor control, and memory storage and retrieval. These simple mental processes affect interactions among humans and other elements of a system if which they are a part. The various topics under this field include mental workload, vigilance, decision-making, skilled performance, human error, human-computer interaction, and training................
