intuitive, safe, and productive products
Human factors is grounded in cognitive psychology, biomechanics, and human physiology to improve how people interact with products, systems, and environments. From surgical tools to home appliances, it takes an evidence-based approach to evaluating physical and cognitive interaction — accounting for factors such as posture, grip, movement patterns, attention span, and visual processing. The value of human factors lies in its ability to translate human capabilities and limitations into actionable design requirements that enhance safety, improve efficiency, and help people perform tasks more effectively. Ultimately, these insights inform the development of products and systems that are not just functional, but purposefully designed for real-world use.
Our Core Capabilities
Our human factors specialists inform everything from early concept exploration to interface design, ergonomics, usability testing, and risk analysis. The result is a product that not only functions as intended, but fits seamlessly into the user’s use pattern, enhancing safety, performance, and overall satisfaction.
We ensure product development aligns with applicable human factors and usability standards, including FDA guidelines, IEC 62366, and other industry-specific requirements.
We use a combination of primary and secondary research methods to uncover actionable insights into users’ physical, cognitive, sensory, and behavioral capabilities and limitations, as well as the environmental and situational factors that shape how products are used.
We integrate research, design, and human factors principles to improve access and usability for people with diverse abilities — including differences in vision, dexterity, cognition, and mobility. Through focused evaluation and inclusive design practices, we identify and remove barriers to ensure solutions work for a broad range of users.
We frame user activities into use cases and tasks to understand current workflows, assess cognitive, physical, and sensory demands, and identify pain points, inefficiencies, and risks. This foundational analysis reveals how processes function today and highlights opportunities to design safer, smoother, and more effective workflows.
We apply human factors principles to reduce cognitive burden, improve comprehension, and support attention, memory, and decision-making. We design information and interactions to be intuitive and easy to navigate, using clear affordances to signal how the system works and aligning with user expectations shaped by prior experience or industry norms. We also consider legibility—typeface, size, contrast, and viewing distance — to ensure content can be quickly seen, read, and acted on.
We apply anthropometric data, biomechanical principles, and user variability to evaluate how people physically interact with products. Our focus is to reduce physical demands and support safe, sustainable use by limiting excessive force and repetitive motion, while promoting neutral postures and natural ranges of motion. These insights guide design decisions that improve comfort, help prevent overuse injuries, and enable effective performance across diverse users.
We evaluate how users interact with a product to identify potential use errors and assess the frequency and severity of harm across tasks, user types, use scenarios, and environments. These insights inform early design decisions and guide risk mitigation strategies. As concepts evolve, we refine our assessments and mitigations to ensure the final solution eliminates or reduces risk to an acceptable level.
We conduct early and iterative usability studies with intended users to evaluate task flow, comprehension, and interface usability. These evaluations help identify potential use-related errors — particularly those associated with risks and critical tasks — while uncovering opportunities to improve clarity, safety, and ease of use. Findings directly inform design refinements and risk controls throughout development, helping ensure the product is safe, effective, and ready for validation.
We conduct formal usability validation studies with a broad range of user types in quantities sufficient to draw statistically meaningful conclusions. This approach ensures regulatory requirements are met and confirms the final solution can be used safely and effectively before product launch.
Our work
Our human factors approach
Our deep roots in medical device design have shaped a rigorous and refined Human Factors process. We apply this expertise across every product we develop, regardless of industry, to ensure each user experience is safe, effective, and enjoyable.
Gain appreciation
We begin by conducting user research and context analysis to develop a clear use specification. This defines who will use the product, the environments in which it will be used, and the tasks users must perform. Establishing this foundation ensures our human factors activities align closely with real-world conditions.
Map the human experience
We analyze user interactions to identify tasks where errors could lead to harm, focusing on those with the highest risk to safety and performance. This analysis uncovers potential hazards, root causes, and the severity and likelihood of harm—informing early risk assessment and guiding mitigation efforts during development. These critical tasks are later tested in formal human factors validation to confirm that mitigation strategies are effective in real-world use.
Learn through testing
We conduct iterative evaluations with representative or actual user samples to uncover usability issues early in development. These tests help to reveal mismatches between user capabilities and product demands, which may manifest as use errors, breakdowns in comprehension or task flow, and interface challenges.
Insights to improvements
We translate research insights and risk assessments into thoughtful design solutions that better align with users’ capabilities, limitations, and real-world environments. This often involves creative alternatives such as modified workflows or novel interaction methods that mitigate, prevent, or work around use-related risks. New concepts and revisions are then evaluated through additional usability testing to ensure they enhance the user experience without introducing new risks.
Summative testing
We conduct formal usability validation studies in which actual users perform critical tasks within real-world conditions, using the final, production-equivalent design. These evaluations verify that users can operate the product safely and effectively, meeting both user needs and regulatory requirements.
Design history
We maintain comprehensive human factors documentation throughout development, including use specifications, risk analyses, usability test reports, and traceability to risk mitigations. These records support regulatory submissions by providing a foundation for design decisions, a well-documented risk mitigation strategy, and evidence to confirm safe and effective use.
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Additional capabilities
Our expertise extends beyond human factors, seamlessly integrating with other disciplines to deliver streamlined product development.
Curious how human factors translates into tangible products? Our industrial designers specialize in transforming insights into exceptional forms. We blend aesthetics with functionality, ensuring your product isn’t just safe and intuitive, but also beautiful, practical, and a pleasure to use.
Our engineering expertise is crucial in optimizing human factors, ensuring products are designed intuitively and safely to align seamlessly with user capabilities. By integrating insights into human interaction, we create solutions that are not only functional but also enhance user experience, minimize errors, and maximize performance.