3. What are the implications of demographic change for the design of
physically demanding jobs?
There are a number of implications. This is one area where ‘fitting the job to the person’
is an important consideration. The design of valid and reliable selection tests will be
‘Gender–free’ selection tests provide an absolute standard of performance which both
men and women have to meet. ‘Gender–fair’ tests select taking the relative differences
between men and women into account, often of the basis that people often work in
teams and can bring a variety of skills to meet the challenges.
CHAPTER 8: JOB DEMANDS,
HEALTH AND WELL-BEING FOR
A CHANGING POPULATION
1. How can we make better use of the ‘Internet of Things’ to encourage and
assist people to maintain a healthy lifestyle?
With increasing connectivity of our homes, our possessions and ourselves, there are
numerous possibilities. One way to approach the discussion is to define the components
of a healthy lifestyle and consider how connectivity might be used to promote these
components:
• Adequate, balanced diet
2. ‘There are too many labor–saving devices’ nowadays’. Discuss.
From the earliest times to the present, human beings have sought more efficient ways
of working. This trend shows no signs of abating. The increase in the number and
3. How should we design cities in the future to encourage physical activity?
There are several ways to approach this discussion topic. One way is to consider the
principles of ‘behavioural economics’ described in Chapter 12, in particular the
principles of ‘nudging’ and ‘friction’ where:
Friction for Activity Avoidance
1. Congestion charge for motorists wishing to drive downtown
CHAPTER 9: DESIGN AND
ASSESSMENT IN HOT AND COLD
WORKPLACES
1. Should thermal comfort requirements be traded-off against energy
efficiency when buildings are designed?
Another way to approach this question is to consider whether current methods of
heating and cooling buildings to provide thermal comfort are as efficient as they might
2. In future offices, should we heat the chair and not the room?
This method is often used in automobiles for use in cold climates to supplement the in–
3. Does obesity put people more at risk of heat exhaustion?
All other things being equal, obese people are more at risk of heat exhaustion when
CHAPTER 10: THE VISUAL
ENVIRONMENT. MEASUREMENT
AND DESIGN
• Are visual problems likely to become more prevalent as people interact socially
with screen-based displays as well as at work?
On the one hand, there is evidence that short-sightedness is more common in
literate societies where children are taught to read from an early age and therefore
• How would you decide on the upper limit for a very high resolution display
(beyond which no further improvements in picture quality could be perceived?
Essentially, it depends on the viewing distance and the separation of cones in the
fovea. To distinguish the features of a high definition display, the images projected
onto the retina must be separated by at least one unexcited cone.
CHAPTER 11: HEARING, SOUND,
NOISE AND VIBRATION
1. Battery electric vehicles emit very little noise. Discuss the implications of
the general adoption of BEVs for the design of the urban environment.
The discussion can be divided in several ways:
• Implications for pedestrian safety
• Implications for drivers (appropriate feedback about the state of the vehicle and the
roads
2. Whether a sound is perceived as noise depends on one’s attitude towards
the source? Discuss.
The main focus of this topic is whether auditory stimuli are perceived as noise.
3. The residents of a small town in Texas report a variety of non-specific
health complaints following the installation of a wind farm nearby. How would
you go about investigating these complaints?
You should not assume that the complaints have arisen because of noise from the wind
farm or because the residents believe that the wind turbines generate noise that is
harmful. Begin with a literature review to familiarize yourself with work that has
already been published in peer-reviewed journals. Subsequently, it may be best, then, to
.
Conducting a survey of noise form the wind farm would only be appropriate later on in
the investigation but should include:
• Measurements around the wind farm itself and (possibly) plotting of noise
contours
Chapter 12 The Mind at Work:
Intention, Action and Interpretation
1. Is ‘mental workload’ a unitary concept?
This topic has been chosen to prompt a discussion in which task demands are
distinguished from mental workload, which in turn is distinguished from the utilisation
of mental resources. In the way, an analogy can be made with physical workload. In the