About the club
Who is our new social media manager?
Tina (thank you so much for the awesome fliers!)
What is the term for designing products usable by as many people as possible without adaptation?
Universal design
"_______" is the total amount of mental effort or "processing power" being used by a person’s working memory at any given time.
Cognitive Load
What annual event does HFES host where professionals and students present research?
The ASPIRE HFES International Annual Meeting! (the next one is October 2026)
The word “ergonomics” comes from Greek roots meaning what?
“Ergo” = work, “nomos” = laws. Literally “the laws of work.”
What is the "Primacy and Recency Effect" (Serial Position Effect)?
The tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst.
What is one major benefit of joining HFES as a student?
Networking, access to research, conferences, mentorship, career development (all of these :)
What does the "Poka-Yoke" principle mean in manufacturing and design?
Mistake-proofing. It is a design that makes it impossible to make an error (a microwave that won't start until the door is latched).
What type of memory holds information temporarily, like a phone number you just heard?
Working memory
When did HFES originate? (+- 5 years)
1957
What is the typical short-term memory capacity in “chunks”?
7 ± 2 chunks (George Miller’s magic number)
This theory explains how people decide whether a signal is present or absent when there’s uncertainty.
Signal Detection Theory
What could HFES also stand for? Funniest answer wins
Funniest answer wins!
Why was the mouse always stressed at work?
Because it couldn’t click with anyone.
In high-stress environments (like an airplane cockpit), what is the term for the phenomenon where a person becomes so focused on one specific task or stimulus that they fail to notice other critical information?
Cognitive Tunneling (or Attentional Tunneling)