Book Review: Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics

Building on his decades of leadership working from his two bases, Purdue University and Tsinghua University (Beijing, China), Salvendy has initiated, organized, and spurred on numerous international human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) research and application information exchange forums, all configured for networking, sharing, and spreading the HF/E brand globally. Thousands of motivated conference attendees of late, many of them focused on elements of human–computer interaction, know Salvendy and his prolific published works, his conference proceedings, and his faithful stream of HF/E handbooks.

In his usual masterful way, Salvendy gathered the works of 131 experts in their respective fields, including many from outside the United States (Poland, Greece, Germany, Malaysia, Cyprus, et al.) to produce yet another scholarly tome. This fourth edition includes 61 chapters and almost 1,700 pages covering the waterfront of our HF/E discipline(s). Sections include human factors function (our discipline); fundamentals (sensation/perception, information processing, cross-cultural design, mental workload, HF/E methods, anthropometry and biomechanics, et al.); design of task and jobs; equipment, workplace, and environmental design; design for health, safety, and comfort; performance modeling; evaluation; human–computer interaction; individual differences (people with functional limitations, children, aging); and select applications of HF/E, such as office ergonomics, transportation vehicle design, and automation.

A key feature of Salvendy’s series of handbooks is that they are readily available in several languages (including Japanese, Russian, Chinese, et al.). Chapters contain theoretically based and practically oriented material for use by both practitioners and researchers. Many chapters covering classical topics in the fourth edition have been completely rewritten. New chapters include those on neuroergonomics, social networking, ambient intelligent environments, online interactivity, and human factors in aviation and more. In this short review, for me to single out specifics from the hundreds of HF/E topics contained in the fourth edition would be shortsighted. Suffice it to say, as a famous spaghetti sauce TV commercial pitched, “It’s in there!”

My request of Wiley would be that one day, like other book publishers, it would see fit to produce such tomes broken into a two- to three-volume set, as opposed to binding up such large volumes as it has now done four times over. The imposing size of these handbooks makes them difficult to manipulate (an HF/E user-friendly simplicity principle aimed at readers, perhaps?). Of course, these handbooks also are somewhat expensive, especially for students.

It is a great reference handbook to place on the shelf for access by graduate students. The binding does not easily accommodate copying even a single page – something many of us are likely to want to do from time to time. But overall, there is no doubt you will want to join the reported 30,000-plus purchasers of the fourth edition and have this handbook on your own reference shelf, even if you read only a dozen or more of the chapters related to your work interests.