While human error has been one of the main technical issues from the early era of human factors engineering, it still remains hot and somewhat vague due to the various types of the concepts and words on human errors in practice. There may be some technical limitations hindering human error prevention activities. This paper introduces the human error activities described in the papers if this issue of ESK Journal according to a few criteria proposed for more effective technical review. And two basic technical issues are discussed on the concepts, perspectives, and classifications about human errors. Each activity shows its own artifacts associated with the safety purpose and the nature of the industry. This paper also provides a set of new technical bases proposed for a more effective management of human errors by considering the dependability, representativeness, and structuredness of human errors. Additionally, this paper includes some new challenges over the current prevention-oriented activities; positive utilizations of human errors to training/education, advertisements, fun and entertainments, and nudges.

Consumer products are produced on the premise that consumers can use their products safely and effectively no matter how serious human errors they may make. However, different careers and educational experiences of them may induce diverse human errors when they want to use them. In that sense, not a few policies to reduce human errors may show some implications for human error prevention and industrial design of consumer products. In this paper, producers' safety efforts required by Product Liability(PL) Act were reviewed in view of human error prevention, and legal aspects of manufacturers' responsibility for consumer products were discussed in relation to Product Liability Act. Then, principal approaches for them were introduced under the title of System Safety Precedence. After that, major key points for preventing human errors related with consumer products - such as ergonomic design and effective labeling - were discussed with reference to ISO standards. Therefore, it was shown that all the efforts required by PL Act would be correspondent to human error prevention in the whole manufacturing processes if understood by ergonomists. To make a conclusion, it could be said that, for human error prevention, the principle of System Safety Precedence would be indispensable, and that all the efforts for preventing human errors should be systematically organized in Product Safety Management Systems.

Objective: The aim of this study is to reclassify human errors and to develop hands-on tools to apply the new classification for preventing human error accidents in highway construction site. Background: The main cause of accidents in highway construction was reported as the carelessness of workers. However, such diagnosis could not help us operationally prevent accidents in real workplace. Method: The accidents in highway construction were reanalyzed and the causes of human error were reclassified in order to educate and improve the awareness of human error in highway construction. Field survey and interview with safety managers and workers were conducted to find the causal relationship between the actual accidents and the human errors. Results: The most frequently observed human errors in highway construction were classified into six categories such as mis-perception, distraction, memory fail, slip, cognition error and mis-judgment. In order to provide hands-on tools to increase the awareness of human error in construction field, the human error checklist and card sorting diary were developed. Especially, the card sorting diary was designed to increase the ability in human error inspection of safety manager at construction site. Moreover, posters were developed based on actual accident cases. Conclusion: We suggested that the improved awareness and analytical report on checklist, card sorting diary and posters for construction field could collectively prevent the accident. Application: The classification of human error, hands-on tools and posters can be directly applicable on highway construction site. This analytical and collective approach preventing human error-related accident could be extended to other construction workplaces.

Safety management paradigm which against human errors in aviation industry is now changing from the follow-up measures after accident in the past to systematic approach that a forecast the hazards and improve the working system of the group to prevent accidents. As human factors are based on the man's specific psychological traits, it takes much time and efforts to prepare the preventive measures. That's why aviation industry is interested in the accident-prevent measurements against human errors. In this thesis, therefore, we are going to introduce the efforts that aviation organizations have tried and recommend management systems and discuss the suggestive facts. At first, we discussed introduction of HFACS which is the systematic accidents-classification system related to human errors in the aviation organization and countermeasure in the aspects of management, technology/engineering, education training. We described about FOQA, LOSA, CRM/TEM, aviation safety information DB in the aspect of management, and explained safety technologies that prevent human errors or avoid technologically when emergency occurs in the aspect of technology/engineering. In the aspect of education training, we explained the application plan about safety programs(LOFT/Simulator use, CRM/TEM application etc).

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to introduce new research trends of human error and accident modeling and to suggest future promising research directions in those areas. Background: Various methods and techniques have been developed to understand the nature of human errors, to classify them, to analyze their causes, to prevent their negative effects, and to use their concepts during design process. However, it has been reported that they are impractical and ineffective for modern complex systems, and new research approaches are needed to secure the safety of those systems. Method: Six different perspectives to study human error and system safety are explained, and then seven recent research trends are introduced in relation to the six perspectives. The implications of the new research trends and viable research directions based on them are discussed from a cognitive systems engineering point of view. Results: Traditional methods for analyzing human errors and identifying causes of accidents have critical limitations in complex systems, and recent research trends seem to provide some insights and clues for overcoming them. Conclusion: Recent research trends of human error and accident modeling emphasize different concepts and viewpoints, which include systems thinking, sociotechnical perspective, ecological modelling, system resilience, and safety culture. Application: The research topics explained in this paper will help researchers to establish future research programmes.

Objective: The aim of this paper is to introduce the activities and research trends of human reliability analysis including brief summary about contents and methods of the analysis. Background: Various approaches and methods have been suggested and used to assess human reliability in field of risk assessment of nuclear power plants. However, it has noticed that there is high uncertainty in human reliability analysis which results in a major bottleneck for risk-informed activities of nuclear power plants. Method: First and second generation methods of human reliability analysis are reviewed and a few representative methods are discussed from the risk assessment perspective. The strength and weakness of each method is also examined from the viewpoint of reliability analyst as a user. In addition, new research trends in this field are briefly summarized. Results: Human reliability analysis has become an important tool to support not only risk assessment but also system design of a centralized complex system. Conclusion: Human reliability analysis should be improved by active cooperation with researchers in field of human factors. Application: The trends of human reliability analysis explained in this paper will help researchers to find interest topics to which they could contribute.

Method: We reviewed the papers of communication analysis studies in various fields and summarized communication error researches. Results: We proposed perspectives for communication error analysis and explained the need for extended analysis framework using advanced human-machine interfaces, which will cause the change of communication between operation team, including shifted abstraction phenomena. And we describe main concepts and the case study of H-H-S framework and finally introduce current studies of communication analysis in nuclear domain. Conclusion: The goal of communication analysis is common in all industries. We have to share and co-work for event prevention. Application: The results of the communication analysis might help to facilitate the understanding for interested researchers.

This paper describes several current research activities and the field techniques for the prevention of human errors during the operation of nuclear power plants(NPPs). The human aspects such as 'fitness for the duties', 'job competence and suitability', 'types of communication', 'behaviors of field workers', 'teamwork of main control room crews', 'task procedures', etc. have been investigated for improving the performance of operating personnel in NPPs. We decide to develop a set of the complementary techniques for the reduction of human errors. The set of techniques developed includes teamwork criteria, jobs fitness analysis, procedure enhancement guide, 3-way communication, campaign posters, a behavior based safety program, a procedure guideline, and a task hazard identification method for the field practitioners in NPPs. These can offer a set of significant human error countermeasures to be considered for analyzing and reducing human error in NPPs as well as other fields of industry.

In this study, we investigated and identified criterial human factors(errors), most of which lead to terrible ship accidents such as collisions, sinking, fire and explosions resulting both in human lives and physical damages to ships as well as surrounding environments. To this end, we went through the accident reports of 413 cases over 2005~2009 period and classified the human factors into 6 major factors with 19 sub ones which were constructed in hierarchical order. The relative importance of major factors was calculated and among others the lack of awareness turned out to be the most important factor with the weight of 0.391. The contributions of the results in the research are two fold: it will help (i) identify the root causes of ship accidents and prevent further potential ship related incidents, (ii) analyze the degree of the risk associated with the ship accidents, when risk analysis is performed.

Almost all companies have paid much attention to the safety management ranging from maintenance to operation even at the stage of designing in order to prevent accidents, but fatal accidents continue to increase throughout the world. In particular, it is essential to systematically prevent such fatal accidents as fire, explosion or leakage of toxic gas at factories in order to not only protect the workers and neighbors but also prevent economic losses and environmental pollution. Though it is well known that accident probability is very low in NPP(Nuclear Power Plants), the reason why many researches are still being performed about the accidents is the results may be so severe. HRA is the main process to make preparation for possibility of human error in designing of the NPP. But those techniques have some problems and limitation as follows; the evaluation sensitivity of those techniques are out of date. And the evaluation of human error is not coupled with the design process. Additionally, the scope of the human error which has to be included in reliability assessment should be expanded. This work focuses on the coincidence of human error and mechanical failure for some important performance shaping factors to propose a method for improving safety effectively of the process industries. In order to apply in these purposes into the thesis, I found 63 critical Performance Shaping Factors of the eight dimensions throughout studies that I executed earlier. In this study, various analysis of opinion of specialists(Personal Factors, Training, Knowledge or Experience, Procedures and Documentation, Information, Communications, HMI, Workplace Design, Quality of Environment, Team Factors) and the guideline for construction of PSF were accomplished. The selected method was AHP which simplifies objective conclusions by maintaining consistency. This research focused on the implementation process of PSF to evaluate the process of PSF at each phase. As a result, we propose an evaluation model of PSF as a tool to find critical problem at each phase and improve on how to resolve the problems found at each phase. This evaluation model makes it possible to extraction of PSF succesfully by presenting the basis of assessment which will be used by enterprises to minimize the trial and error of construction process of PSF.

In this research, three topics were studied for the elderly. The first was the elderly's error characteristics for tracing task and the second was for depth perception. The characteristics were compared with the young's. Twenty two old people and twenty two young people participated in the tracing experiment, respectively. In the depth perception experiment, twenty three old people and twenty two young people participated. A depth perception apparatus and a tracing one were used in the experiment. In the depth perception error, a significant difference was not detected on gender. However significant differences were detected with age and viewing distance. In the tracing error, significant difference was detected with age, also. The third experiment was push-button operation and fifteen old people participated in the experiment. As the result, operation time error was increased with the button size and the moving distance. The result of this study will be able to be considered in its user interface design to reduce the elderly's error while using a product.

While human error happens repeatedly in the semiconductor industry in Korea, which has brought a tremendous loss from manpower, welfare etc., there are limitations to human error prevention activities. When a semiconductor company introduces new machines and facilities from Japan or Germany, the companies often do not consider human factors in the design. Also, semiconductor companies are so occupied with promoting increased productivity, their attention to human errors has been pushed aside. Negative aspects of technical exchange associated with safety management are one aspect of the industry's nature. A semiconductor company recently began acknowledging on the back of TQM(Total Quality Management) that human error has a decisive effect on the safety. There are a number of uncontrollable and hard to handle event sets because the nature of these events with a human error may often be threatened or very intensive. It is strongly required that systemic studies should be performed to grasp the whole picture of a current situation for hazard factors. This study aims to examine the human error approach through the case of human error prevention field activities in a semiconductor industry compared with the activities and experience in nuclear power plants.

The nuclear power plants and chemical industries are trying to find human error to prevent occupational injury. The ratio of occupational injury is higher than the other industries in shipbuilding industry. It is known that the most important reason is human error. Recently, the shipbuilding industries interest in human error to prevent occupational injury. This paper outlines four approaches of human error identification used in shipbuilding industry such as survey of occupational injury, root cause analysis, risk assessment, and performance shaping factors. Finally, this paper proposes the interventions of ergonomics for preventing the human errors.

Nationally and internationally reported statistics on marine accidents show that 80% or more of all marine accidents are caused fully or in part by human error. According to the statistics of marine accident causes from Korean Maritime Safety Tribunal(KMST), operating errors are implicated in 78.7% of all marine accidents that occurred from 2002 to 2006. In the case of the collision accidents, about 95% of all collision accidents are caused by operating errors, and those human error related collision accidents are mostly caused by failure of maintaining proper lookout and breach of the regulations for preventing collision. One way of reducing the probability of occurrence of the human error related marine accidents effectively is by investigating and understanding the role of the human elements in accident causation. In this paper, causal factors/root causes classification systems for marine accident investigation were reviewed and some typical human error analysis methods used in shipping industry were described in detail. This paper also proposed a human error analysis method that contains a cognitive process model, a human error analysis technique(Maritime HFACS) and a marine accident causal chains, and then its application to the actual marine accident was provided as a case study in order to demonstrate the framework of the method.

There have been many efforts to prevent accidents in Korea for the last 25 years. Many measures in the area of hardware sciences including electrical, mechanical, chemical engineering, etc. were applied to eliminate or at least reduce causes of accidents. However, the accidents rate has not been reduced much despite of these measures. This research aimed to find real causes of these accidents and to suggest a comprehensive model that can mainly be applied to industrial fields to find potential or existence of human errors during the pre-installation stage or after an accident. We tried to explain sequences of an operator's information process that might cause human errors on one hand, and life cycle stages of facilities involved when human errors occur on the other hand. With this comprehensive model presented in this research, one can follow up the sequence of human errors caused by operators. Further, errors made at the design stage which could be a main cause of accidents can be tracked. It is recommended that this comprehensive model should be used to prevent human errors in industrial fields since safety personnel can easily find out errors or error potentials through the life cycle stages of manmachine facilities.

Objective: The aim of this study is to review the ISO(the International Organization for Standardization) standards recommendations on a human error tolerant control room design. Background: ISO TC(Technical Committee) 159 published a variety of international standards on design of mental and physical work, design of displays and controls, and workstation layout design. A proper edition of these standards can be a good resource for a human error tolerant control center design guidelines. Method: Recommendations of ISO TC 159 standards were grouped into arrangement of control suite, layout of control room, layout and dimensions of workstations, design of displays and controls, environmental design, alarm, automation, management system design, procedure and training. Results: It was found that some standards on the design of supervisory control and data acquisition(SCADA), alarm, automation, layout, workload management, and environment can be used for human error prevention guidelines in the control center design. Conclusion: ISO TC 159 standards were not sufficient to cover all the ergonomics area of control center design. Application: Designers can have technical aids from these ISO standards to improve ergonomic performance of their control center.

The aim of this study is to review previous studies on human errors in the service delivery processes. Service industry is sharply growing in the advanced countries. Many people are looking for something to contribute to the service industry. Although there are many research topics related to service domain that human factors and ergonomics specialists can do contribute, a few researchers are studying such topics. This paper indicated how previous researches on human factors and human errors have addressed the service domain, in order to prompt human factor study on the service domain. A variety of sources were inspected for literature reviews, including books and journals of managements, medicine, psychology, consumer behavior as well as human factor and ergonomics. The characteristics of human errors in the service domain were investigated. Human error studies in several service sectors were summarized such as medical service, automotive service operation, travel agent service and call center service. Until now, human factors community was not much interested in human errors in service domain. However, there is much space to contribute to service domain; human error identification, human error analysis and control of human error. The research of human error in service domain can provide clues to improve service quality. This paper helps to guide to identify human error of service domain and to design service systems.

Objective: This study is to review three representative psychological perspectives that explain scientific construct of emotion, that are the discrete emotion model, appraisal model, and dimensional model. Background: To develop emotion sensitive interface is the fusion area of emotion and scientific technology, it is necessary to have a balanced mixture of both the scientific theory of emotion and practical engineering technology. Extensional theories of the emotional structure can provide engineers with relevant knowledge in functional application of the systems. Method: To achieve this purpose, firstly, literature review on the basic emotion model and the circuit model of discrete emotion model as well as representative theories was done. Secondly, review on the classical and modern theories of the appraisal model emphasizing cognitive appraisal in emotion provoking events was conducted. Lastly, a review on dimensional theories describing emotion by dimensions and representative theories was conducted. Results: The paper compared the three models based on the prime points of the each model. In addition, this paper also made a comment on a need for a comprehensive model an alternative to each model, which is componential model by Scherer(2001) describing numerous emotional aspects. Conclusion: However, this review suggests a need for an evolved comprehensive model taking consideration of social context effect and discrete neural circuit while pinpointing the limitation of componential model. Application: Insight obtained by extensive scientific research in human emotion can be valuable in development of emotion sensitive interface and emotion recognition technology.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between conceptual metaphors of affect and physical dimensions. Background: The evidence that affect is unconsciously linked to physical dimensions(e.g., position and color) has been obtained in western cultures. However, in eastern cultures, especially, in Korea, it has been seldom tested. It is indispensable to examine whether or not cultural differences exist for better understanding of the conceptual metaphors. Method: 50 positive and 50 negative words were adopted from previous studies in order to determine the relationship between physical domains and abstract affect. Three hypotheses were tested in this study: (1) Good is up. (2) Good is bright. (3) Good is right(for right-handers). The automatic association between valence(positive vs. negative) and vertical position (up vs. down) was investigated in experiment 1, in which 100 words were randomly presented on either the top or the bottom of a LCD screen and the evaluation time of the presented word was recorded. The unconscious association between valence and color(white and black) was examined in experiment 2, where each word was randomly presented in either white or black. Lastly, we tested whether right-handers tend to associate rightward space with positive ideas and leftward space with negative ideas. Results: Reaction time was faster when words were presented in metaphor congruent domains(e.g., 'positive words on the top, in bright color, and on right space vs. negative words on the bottom, in dark color, and on left region) than when they were shown in metaphor incongruent domains. Conclusion: The results might give the groundwork for various directions in further understanding perception, emotion, and behavior. Application: This study may provide useful points to GUI designers and service developers if further studies enhanced in validity and reliability are followed.

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate and review the previous researches about objective measuring fatigue caused by visual stimuli. Also, we analyze possibility of alternative visual fatigue measurement methods using facial expression recognition and gesture recognition. Background: In most previous researches, visual fatigue is commonly measured by survey or interview based subjective method. However, the subjective evaluation methods can be affected by individual feeling's variation or other kinds of stimuli. To solve these problems, signal and image processing based visual fatigue measurement methods have been widely researched. Method: To analyze the signal and image processing based methods, we categorized previous works into three groups such as bio-signal, brainwave, and eye image based methods. Also, the possibility of adopting facial expression or gesture recognition to measure visual fatigue is analyzed. Results: Bio-signal and brainwave based methods have problems because they can be degraded by not only visual stimuli but also the other kinds of external stimuli caused by other sense organs. In eye image based methods, using only single feature such as blink frequency or pupil size also has problem because the single feature can be easily degraded by other kinds of emotions. Conclusion: Multi-modal measurement method is required by fusing several features which are extracted from the bio-signal and image. Also, alternative method using facial expression or gesture recognition can be considered. Application: The objective visual fatigue measurement method can be applied into the fields of quantitative and comparative measurement of visual fatigue of next generation display devices in terms of human factor.

Objective: The aim of this study is to introduce a methodology to assess driver's emotion stability by using bio-signals. Background: Psychophysiological analysis of driver's behavior has been conducted to improve the driving safety and comfort. However, the variability of bio-signal and individual difference made it difficult to assess the psychophysiological status of drivers that can be expressed as emotional stability of drivers. Method: Two experimental studies were reviewed and summarized. New techniques assessing emotional stability of drivers were explained. Statistical concept and multidimensional space were used to identify the emotionally stable conditions. Conclusion: Psychophysiological approach can provide information of driver's emotional status. The experimental methodology and algorithm used in this study showed the possibility of parameterization of psychophysiological response. Application: Currently measured statistical and geometrical data can be further applied to develop an interactive device monitoring and reacting driver's emotion when driver experiences emotionally unstable or uncomfortable situation.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate middle-aged drivers' driving performance and heart-rate as the behavior and physiological changes due to intersection types in left-turn situation. Background: In Korea, the drivers were aged 40~50s are most plentiful. In addition, the intersection traffic accidents are increasing every year. However, the researches for middle-aged drivers and intersection environments have been little. Method: In this study, three kinds of left-turning intersection types(T1, T2, T3) was used as the within-subject independent variables, three age groups(young, middle-aged, elderly) was used as the between-subject independent variables. Also, passing time, approaching velocity, speed and steering variations and heart-rate were used as dependent variables. Results: Overall, middle-aged drivers' driving behaviors were similar to those of the younger drivers. At the T2 intersection type, however, the approaching velocity of middle-aged drivers was similar to younger drivers, whereas the passing time of middle-aged drivers was similar to elderly drivers. Conclusion: These results could be interpreted that a transition driving behavior of middle-aged drivers in terms of age would be appeared on the T2 intersection type. Application: The results might help to understand the characteristics of driving behavior for middle-aged drivers.

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the quantitative effects of various emotions and retention periods on the color vividness of visual memory. Background: Although numerous studies have focused on the effects of emotions on memory such as visual detail and vividness of emotional events compared to neutral events, the relationship between emotion and visual memory is ambiguous yet. Furthermore, there were few studies on the effect of emotion on vividness of visual memory. Method: A total of 68 subjects were participated in serial experiments proceed on online and the experiments had two phases: recognition phase and reproduction phase. The 15 photographs were used as visual stimuli and all experiments were conducted over the internet(experiment website) and the results were collected on the web database. Results: The retention period, sleep-arousal emotion and subjective saturation of visual stimuli had a significant effect on the color vividness of visual memory. Conclusion: The results suggested that the color of visual stimulus might be more vividly remembered when it is arousing, the subjective saturation is higher and the retention period is longer. Application: The findings of this study may help clarify the relationship between human emotions and visual memory.

Objective: Making a new ergonomic interface system based on camera vision system, which helps the handicapped in home environment. Background: Enabling the handicapped to manipulate the consumer electronics by the proposed interface system. Method: A wearable device for capturing the eye image using a near-infrared(NIR) camera and illuminators is proposed for tracking eye gaze position(Heo et al., 2011). A frontal viewing camera is attached to the wearable device, which can recognize the consumer electronics to be controlled(Heo et al., 2011). And the amount of user's eye fatigue can be measured based on eye blink rate, and in case that the user's fatigue exceeds in the predetermined level, the proposed system can automatically change the mode of gaze based interface into that of manual selection. Results: The experimental results showed that the gaze estimation error of the proposed method was 1.98 degrees with the successful recognition of the object by the frontal viewing camera(Heo et al., 2011). Conclusion: We made a new ergonomic interface system based on gaze tracking and object recognition Application: The proposed system can be used for helping the handicapped in home environment.

The train transportation has a lot of advantages-energy efficiency is high, it is eco-friendly, safety is better than normal roads and it is possible for people to arrive on time. In these days, the valuation of ride comfort, which is only limited to road transportation, is newly recognized in order to having competitiveness from other transportation. Especially, in the development of the Korean high-speed railroad business, the ride comfort enhancement of train is very important problem to be solved. Currently, there are international standards of ride comfort such as UIC13, ISO2631. In Korea case, although it has own standard like KS R9216, it mainly depends on the physical parameter such as vibration and noise. So recently, in the valuation of ride comfort, the movements of living parameter technique introduction are increasing on the base of Japan and many developed countries of Europe techniques. Presently, the method of train ride comfort is mainly based of vibration, that is, mechanical parameter adding selection of variable acceleration and noise. This paper would like to show biological parameter; heart rate and blood pressure variation. This method is more direct, based on human body response, than mechanical parameter method. In this experiment, the variability of heart rate and blood pressure of passengers according to tilting angle change of Train, the Korean tilting train, we are supposed to know that the extent of tilting on the simulation has influence on variability of heart rate and blood pressure, which are living parameter of heart's blood.

When designing a ship, ergonomic considerations are crucial when minimizing a navigator's fatigue due to the burden of work, and to appropriately operate the navigational equipment for each given situation by helping the operator to understand the surroundings as well as the physical functions of the ship. However, insufficient consideration of ergonomic elements in the actual design of ship Bridges is lowering the performance of safe navigation and allows for the possibility of operation or readout errors. Consequently, these errors lead to an increase in maritime accidents. Therefore, this study conducted a usability evaluation on the importance of and the usage frequency of navigational equipment, their influence on actual navigation, and the possibility of error upon operation or readout between training ship officers, to derive an optimized layout that includes the consideration of ergonomic factors for on-Bridge navigational equipment, which are currently arranged differently according to their type or size. The optimized layout of on-Bridge navigational equipment was carried out based on the evaluation results, using the Lingo program. Through the process of optimization, revised layouts of on-Bridge navigational equipments(control and display device) were suggested, considering emergency situations(ship collision, stranding, fire and explosion, sinking, etc.) during navigation.

Does preferred hand show better performance than non-preferred hand in smart phone text entry using one hand. Is the performance of subjects who use left-preferred hand in smart phone text entry worse than that of others who use right preferred hand among the right handed. This study tried to address these two questions. Thirty young male undergraduate students typed a text using a smart phone which has a touch-based QWERTY keyboard two times with both hands, right and left hand, respectively. The completion time, errors were measured in the text entry tasks. All of participants were right handed, but half of them preferred right hand if they have to use one hand in smart phone text entry and other half preferred left hand. The percentage that preferred hand has better performance than non-preferred hand in smart phone text entry using one hand is less than 90% for right-preferred hand and less than 70% for left-preferred hand. The performance of left hand preferred students is not worse than that of the right hand preferred in one hand text entry of smart phone.

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the attributing factors influencing usability of the mobile phones specifically designed for the elderly users. Efforts to identify factors that cause usability problems for the elderly users in using mobile phones can provide the groundwork for changes aimed at usability enhancement and design of interfaces of mobile phones. Background: It became important to understand the behaviors and tendencies of the elderly in communication as the society became older. The problems in digital divide is contributed to mainly lack of understanding in terms of the use pattern of the elderly and lack of consideration of their characteristics in designing user interfaces of most ICT devices. Method: A total of 30 elderly users who were over 65 years in age participated in usability evaluation test experiment and performed seven different tasks using a widely accepted model of universally designed mobile phone. Their performance was compared with that of contrast group that consisted of 10 younger participants who were on their 20s. Results: It was found that the elderly users had hard times in using mobile phones, especially in keypad manipulation among search, understanding, and manipulation subtasks. Conclusion: Older users seemed to have difficulty in all the subtasks of search, recognition, and manipulation. It was suggested that designers of mobile phones need to give careful consideration into designing visual interfaces for search tasks and keypads for easier control and input for the elderly users. Application: The study is expected to provide guidelines for the universal design of mobile phones and their interfaces for enhancing usability of the mobile phone for elderly users.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance status of the ligal examination of risk factors of musculoskeletal disorders(MSDs). The study was based on in-depth interviews with the persons in charge of the examination in 63 sampled companies, which are various in location, type of industry and size. The interviews were carried out based on detail questions as well as a predefined checklist. The main findings are as follows: 1) More than half of the companies did not properly comply with the laws in performing the examination of MSDs risk factors; 2) In about 60% of the companies, the examination has been carried out by their own persons; 3) 38% of the companies conducting the survey of musculoskeletal symptoms did not diagnosed musculoskeletal symptoms based on the survey; 4) Most companies performed the prevention activities for MSDs such as education/training, stretching, etc.; 5) It was revealed that the 11 high-risk tasks were not considered to be properly defined by the people in the industries, which results in some difficulties such as ambiguity in defining the 11 tasks and unit tasks; 6) The period of the examination of risk factors, classification of periodic and occupational examinations and legalization of employers' obligation for preventing MSDs are considered to be acceptable or desirable, while it was pointed out that regulations for the method of the risk assessment and the person who in charge of the examination need to be modified.