Human Factors Research & Design

Human factors examines the relationship between human beings and the systems they use, focusing on improving effectiveness and ease of use with the goal of minimizing use errors. Our consulting team has deep experience in the medical device and combination product domains.

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Our Practice

We have helped our clients succeed in hundreds of product development projects.

Discovery

Applying our know-how and experience in research, human factors, design, engineering, and regulatory to help you chart a path forward.

Research

User research leads to a richer understanding of the factors controlling the quality of user interactions with your product.

Analysis

Our human factors "toolkit" contains many types of analyses that focus on mental and physical interactions with products.

Design

Our UI design approach leverages user research to achieve functional and aesthetic goals.

Evaluation

Summative usability testing, formative usability testing, expert critiques, heuristic analyses, cognitive walkthroughs, and more.

Training

We want to make the world safer and better through HFE research, training, consulting, and program development.

History Built with Experience

Rebranded as EMERGO by UL (still part of UL), our Human Factors Research & Design (HFR&D) team has extensive experience helping clients bring products to market and ensuring best-in-class user experiences.

LEARN HOW WE HELP

Blog

Get the latest industry insights from our Human Factors experts. View All

Jan 12, 2022

5 tips to ease nervous participants during product evaluations

Putting usability research study participants at ease can improve accuracy of user feedback

Nov 30, 2021

Five tips to make the most of your human factors validation protocol pre-sub to the US FDA

Recommendations for medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers to maximize pre-sub consultations with FDA for HF...

Nov 10, 2021

The modern era of potential use error

A human factors engineering and usability perspective on how smarter technologies may cause potential use...

Oct 20, 2021

Defining critical tasks for human factors validation tests of combination products

US FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) expectations for HFE validation tests and...

Sep 28, 2021

Considering the effect of instructional text’s readability on task completion times

We must consider three elements of completing a task for new users: reading instructions, understanding...