FPE asks Steve Merriman (former Navy civilian and long-time Boeing employee) why he became an ergonomist.

After graduating with a BA degree in 1967, I took a summer intern position with the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) in the DC area. My internship quickly turned into permanent employee status and I spent the next 10+ years reviewing accident/mishap reports, assisting in aircraft and cockpit design, monitoring technology research and development progress, and proposing crew station design improvements.  

It became obvious to me that many of the accidents caused by “human error” were really “design induced.” 

Poor interface design, failures to implement human engineering criteria, failures to consider transfer-of-training impacts from flying previous aircraft, and poor anthropometric accommodation led to errors, poor job performance and accidents, often involving fatalities.  I realized that well-designed user interfaces can be huge contributors to system performance, human error, maintenance costs and mishaps. After more than 50 years as a practitioner ergonomist, I continue to find ample opportunity to improve system designs. This has helped me focus on improving the user interface, human engineering and human systems integration (HSI) 

requirements that are applied to complex system development projects.

In the mid-1970s, after eight years of working on dozens of aircraft development programs, I had an awesome opportunity to make differences on a new program, the F/A-18 Hornet fighter/attack aircraft.  To prepare for that assignment:  

• I led development of a better computer-based program to analyze and improve anthropometric fit of aircrews in crew stations; this resulted in the F/A-18 increasing the accommodated percentage of aviators and expanding accommodation to include female aviators.
• I commissioned development of a best practice standard for designing systems for enhanced maintainability; this significantly reduced F/A-18 maintenance time, down-time and ownership cost.  
• I helped transition several emergent control and display technologies from Office of Naval Research (ONR) research programs into the F/A-18 Hornet requirements, including multi-purpose displays, multi-function switching and electronic map displays.  This resulted in the world’s first “glass cockpit” aircraft.  
• I was successful in incorporating better requirements into the F/A-18 contract statement of work and the system specification; this resulted in a very strong contractor HFE program.

The F/A-18 program included much improved human engineering planning and reporting requirements that I wanted to capture for other programs. So, in 1978, I volunteered to lead an Army (John Miles), Navy (Bill Moroney), Air Force team to author new Human Engineering data item descriptions. Many were based on the F-/A-18 Hornet experience. These requirements address all human engineering plans and reports; they are still being used to manage human engineering programs today, 40 years later. I began to realize that improving user interface designs was going to be my long-term goal and that it would take years to make a difference.