Citation

Drury CG. Ergonomics 2015; 58(5): 659-673.

Affiliation

a Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering , University at Buffalo: SUNY , 434 Bell Hall, Buffalo , 14260 NY , USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/00140139.2015.1025106

PMID

25849898

Abstract

In recent years, advances in sensor technology, connectedness and computational power have come together to produce huge data-sets. The treatment and analysis of these data-sets is known as big data analytics (BDA), and the somewhat related term data mining. Fields allied to human factors/ergonomics (HFE), e.g. statistics, have developed computational methods to derive meaningful, actionable conclusions from these data bases. This paper examines BDA, often characterised by volume, velocity and variety, giving examples of successful BDA use. This examination provides context by considering examples of using BDA on human data, using BDA in HFE studies, and studies of how people perform BDA. Significant issues for HFE are the reliance of BDA on correlation rather than hypotheses and theory, the ethics of BDA and the use of HFE in data visualisation.

Language: en