One of the great things about membership of the IEHF (Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors) is the support it provides for professionalism in the workplace, backed up by a strong sense of tradition underpinning the academic roots of the discipline. But perhaps one of its weaker points is our communal readiness to embrace new ways of working and communicating, particularly regarding social media and other online networking tools (e.g. blogs, wikis, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc). There seems to be a perception (among the wider UX community, at least) that the IEHF is somewhat backward looking in this respect, with one ex-member describing it as “another association that’s extremely old school and slooooooooooow”. Reading some of these comments, you’d think that the average IEHF member couldn’t tell their RSS from their elbow. But is this really true? Is the footprint of the IEHF across social media really that shallow, or do we in fact have a small army of nascent bloggers and tweeters? I raised the issue recently on the LinkedIn IEHF forum, and this brief article summarises the response.
First, let’s look at blogs by people in the IEHF community whom many of us will know: Council members (both current and recent). Credit here goes to Tom Stewart, who features regularly as a guest blogger on Econsultancy, and thus earns double kudos for (a) writing engaging, topical content and (b) reaching out to ‘non ergonomic’ communities. On a personal note, I think this is something we should be doing a lot more of: there are plenty of folk out there in the digital community who would be very receptive to the IEHF’s message if only it was articulated in terms that resonate with them.
Then there’s Ed Chandler, whose UserAccess Design blog covers “Usability and Accessibility in the Information Society”. Ed is also creator of the UserAccess Daily, an online newspaper on the subject of accessible design. This publication (in common with others from paper.li) is generated automatically from syndicated online sources on a regular schedule. The end result: a newspaper-like reading experience, delivered to your inbox. Nice work, Ed.
These two, combined with my own blog (Information Interaction), means that out of a set of ~19 Council members, we appear to have just three active bloggers. Of course, I recognize that blogging is just one channel through which to engage the wider community, but given our aspirations to grow the membership base and appeal to a more youthful demographic, I had hoped to see more.
Looking further afield, there are blogs by various IEHF members, such as Brian Sherwood Jones’ Usability in Context blog which covers an eclectic but highly accessible mix of articles on the subject of “Usability and Quality in Use in everyday life”. Also highly readable (and well illustrated) is Paul Salkeld’s “Observations of Ergonomics”, which covers a variety of workspace and product ergonomics issues.
Also worth a look are Guy Osmond’s Off at Tangents blog, Roy Matheson’s Philosophy on Workplace Safety and Work Injury Evaluation”, Mark Paradies’ blog on root cause analysis, Andy Brazier’s Human factors in risk management, and Yamile Jackson’s Nurtured by Design which covers neonatal ergonomics.
And then there are the corporate blogs, i.e. those maintained on behalf of a larger organisation by a number of active contributors. Notable among these are the ABB blog, which covers process safety related HF issues, CCD’s Design and the Human Factor, Davis Associates’ User Insights for Design and Brunel University’s Human Centred Design Institute blog.
But there’s more to social media than blogging. If you want to keep up with the Institute on Twitter, for example, you can follow @ukiehf. And Dominic Furniss of UCL is using Twitter as an online diary study tool to gather user data on human error. But beyond that, the number of active IEHF members on Twitter seems modest at best. By contrast, we seem to be doing rather better on LinkedIn, where the IEHF group now has over 1,200 members and is growing at a healthy rate of 50+ new members each month (note however that this also includes non-IEHF members). Likewise, the Institute has an active presence on Facebook, with various related pages for events such as the student conference. Finally, there are of course other popular blogs on the topics of ergonomics, human factors, usability, user experience and so on, but I haven’t included them here unless there is a clear and direct link to the IEHF (e.g. through personal membership).
So what’s my assessment of the IEHF’s engagement with social media? Overall, my impression is one of missed opportunity (thus far). After all, there must be thousands of people worldwide working in user experience design for online products and services, in many cases developing the very sites and tools that provoked this discussion. And yet, we count but a handful of these as active IEHF members. No irony there, then.
Finally, remember also that this is an ongoing effort, open to further contributions, so if I’ve omitted your personal favourite (or your own blog), drop me a line either here or by email.
BTW, from next year I’ll be standing down from my role as Associate Rep, so if you’re interested in picking up the reins from me, get in touch.
I partly agree with this. But in my experience, the difference is the focus of the industry that HF specialists and ergonomists witk within. Most ergonomists and HF specialists are not working in the digital economy primarily and directly, unlike its most of those who would describe themselves as UX professionals. In the systems safety field for instance, I would hazard to say that blogs have relatively little value and reaching out is done in other way than via social media.
Counting blogs is rather partial. To stick my neck out, I would say that most blogs are over rated and under read, existing primarily for the author. I maintained one or two blogs once myself carried for a while until I saw how pointless it was in terms of the ratio of effort to point. Automated news aggregating sites that abound on twitter are almost totally pointless and only add spam to twitter (“The XYZ Daily is out now!”). But what is ‘a blog’? The IEHF website features a weblog of relevant news stories hand-compiled (by own fingers mostly), including tens of national and international news stories each month (http://ergonomics.org.uk/news), which have been hand tweeted on twitter @ukiehf.
And Twitter is another issue, and here there are far more ergonomists and HF specialists than the article would suggest. People don’t necessarily advertise themselves as such as include that detail in their profiles.
But, on the whole I agree that those in my profession are not as digitally minded as could be useful for the profession. But why? Maybe it’s because in the industries that most of us work in other forms of outreach are more efficient and effective, e.g. face to face communication, other media (e.g. paper Method cards, wiki websites such as SkyBrary), web meetings, and white papers.
While the profession probably does need to engage more in social media, the medium is not necessarily the message in the industries that HF specialists and ergonomists work within.
Hi Steve: Thanks for stopping by – thoughtful comments as always. And I agree in your observation that I’m rather conflating two (not necessarily overlapping) communities here: ‘traditional’ HF/ergs (systems & safety critical et al) and UX more generally (particularly those working on digital).
Let me pick up on a couple of points: “most blogs are over rated and under read, existing primarily for the author”. In that case, Im inclined to think you’re probably reading the wrong ones. There are most certainly blogs that I follow on a daily basis and rely on for incisive commentary on a wide range of topical issues. But they just don’t happen to be written by active IEHFmembers. Maybe in a way that undelines my point (note to self: must include blogroll widget on this site). And I’m differentiating between news feeds (such as the content we generally see syndicated on ergonomics.org.uk) and commentary/insight: the latter is much harder to source (I think we both agree on that).
“Twitter is another issue, and here there are far more ergonomists and HF specialists than the article would suggest”. Sure, but how may are current IEHF members? Seriously, there’s you, me, Ed, and the @ukiehf, but after that…. is that it?
I don’t have (or read!) any blogs but I do use Twitter to follow organisations and individuals that are of interest to me through work (so for me it would be ‘no celebrity gossip please, I’m an ergonomist’)…I don’t actively tweet myself (which makes it unfortunate that I have some followers!), for me it is about keeping an ‘eye’ on funding opportunities and work being done/mentioned by those in similar areas.
“as an online dairy study tool to gather user data on human error.” Not sure if that was deliberate or not but it seemed quite apt and made me smile!
Hi Tony
I read a few good blogs but the point I wanted to make was that the effort needed for any of us to make *and maintain* a successful blog is very significant and we all need to consider the costs and benefits. I set up a blog for news summary and comment and the effort was huge in comparison to doing other things, like simply farming more stories without bespoke summary, for @ukiehf and the website and The Ergonomist magazine, in addition to LinkedIn, personal twitter, writing White Papers, delivering basic training, developing novel methods for non-specialists, etc, all of which count as outreach of sorts and most of us do some or all of these, and more. The medium has to fit to the purpose and audience.
For twitter, check out the followers of @ukiehf to find some more ergonomists/HF specialists, but they do. Not all mention this or IEHF membership in the profile. A few examples, nearly all IEHF members tweeting on EHF: @SarahTapley @doctoryoung @livsystems @AdrianWoodcock @Inogrady @JoanneCrawford3 @blambertnet @humansindesign @ergognome @DrGickAss @RachBennett @fionawoodcock @BrianSJ3 @hoppipolly @scsharples @patrickwjordan @VKing_SCL…and more!
Hi Steve: good to hear about all those Twitter users. I recognise some of those names – hope to hear more from them (either here or on Twitter).
As you probably guessed, I was deliberately provocative with the title to this piece, inviting people to prove me wrong… if that’s the case, then I think we all benefit as a result
Greetings from Toronto, Canada.
Great article, and I tend to agree with the points made. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Human Factors community “just doesn’t get social media” and I also see it as a missed opportunity. The most recent HFES conference in Las Vegas had only a handful of active tweeters.
I personally don’t read very many blogs (although the ones you included look quite interesting) but I’m a bit surprised at the dearth of HF content on Twitter. There are so many great HF related articles out there, and it’s so easy to share on Twitter using a #humanfactors hashtag. Why no uptake? Perhaps the content is hiding under some other hashtag?
I think that one reason could be that posting HF content on Twitter is often reserved for very specific research topics or industrial and commercial applications, as opposed to HF issues in daily life. Unless one has a keen interest in that field, perhaps that tweet will be passed over.
I have the habit of posting links to articles that anyone with an interest in HF might enjoy (My handle is @tonefone) using the #humanfactors hashtag, among other kinds of tweets. They might not fit the mould of classic HF topics, but it may help to garner interest in more approachable topics in HF. It may also encourage others to post as well.
Thanks for opening up this discussion.
I don’t think you’re wrong Tony, I just think that Ergonomists/HF specialists involved in petrochemical, aviation, nuclear, healthcare, office work, defence, etc, probably don’t advertise themselves as such in social media as much as their cousins involved in consumer side/designing digital services. That is quite rational and there are reasons. As I implied above, their work is not really about social media so they have less incentive to share about it in the same way. Also, there are often confidentiality issues. If you work in defence (large number of ergonomists), security, or other sectors or activities that could be controversial or newsworthy (e.g. safety of healthcare, nuclear power, petrochemical safety), you would be extra cautious about blogging/tweeting/etc about these. Or maybe you have to be extra cautious because your organisation has a policy which makes you twitchy. There are lots of reasons, but many of them do not apply to the UX community in the same way.
Ruth: I’ve finally twigged what you’re on about above (the unintentional error). Doh! It’s fixed now, but I think Dom posted it to errordiary anyway
Tony – great article and I have shared the link a few times, I will do it some more! Hope to see more discussion on the social channels in 2012.
Cheers,
Darren aka @iErgonomist
Steve, if you are still there. It is a serious mistake to claim that blogging, twitter etc. are for those in digital media only, or primarily. My suspicion is that many in IEHF work behind the great corporate firewall in organizations that have decided (usually by default) to isolate themselves from the 21st Century. UPA folk tend to work in more connected environments. I suspect that the ‘be extra cautious’ point is valid and separate, and also a sign of a poor (safety) culture.
It isn’t a question of ‘advertising’ it is just a question of being part of the world.
As regards effort of writing a ‘successful’ blog, and the somewhat derogatory point about blogs being about their authors; this is largely true. I use blog posts as a way of clearing my head on a topic. There are usually a few folk interested, which is a bonus. IEHF invisibility on the web just contributes to the continuing irrelevance of the ergonomics community to most of the world, and that is the way it is (and will stay, I guess).
Brain, that’s not actually what I said. What I said was that the focus of the more traditional ergonomics community was different to the focus of the UX community, though the two obviously overlap. I also claimed that most ergonomists (inc. HF specialists, whatever the difference is) are not working its digital economy primarily and directly, unlike those who might label themselves UX people, which creates a difference in incentive. I also said that a good many IEHF members are twitter users, but do not necessarily advertise (or identify) themselves as such explicitly. And there is nothing wrong with promoting oneself and one’s views via blogs or anything else, nor in using a blog to work out one’s position or thing through an issue. Nothing derogatory there; but that fact that so many blogs are followed by so few is as it is. It is, however, a lot of effort and so often people contribute in other ways, such as writing comments on other blogs
), newspaper articles, LinkedIn, etc. I felt some of these other types of contributions were not really recognised in the article. I would agree with many other points though, but those are the constraints (corporate policies, etc) that many ergonomists do have to live with, and so may well be more anonymous in their professional digital life. To say that it is because they are ergonomists is ok as a provocative, attention-grabbing headline, but absurd as an argument.
Steve, I didn’t understand your last sentence at all. Making a guess as to its meaning, I’d disagree. By and large ergonomists are old-fashioned in their approach to their own work. The IEHF is attempting to be something very old-fashioned. There is considerable validity in the headline.
As regards the traditional environment for traditional ergonomists; yes, this environment needs communication with old media if you are to reach them. I have just sent out some paper calendars! However, the traditional environment is wrong to ignore social media, and traditional ergonomists are wrong to go along with that. Have a look at http://crisiscommscp.blogspot.com/ for example. If a safety related organisation is not using social media routinely before something goes wrong, it will not cope when something has gone wrong.
Whining about blogging is fine, but please don’t get me started on it in comparison to the nonsense of traditional academic publishing! I am not entirely sure where there is a low-effort high-return communications medium in an attention economy.
I came back because I wondered whether some of it is because practitioner ergonomists have fallen for the myth that they are ‘scientists’ who write monographs for the Royal Society rather than blog. This puts them in contrast with say the UX folk who see themselves as ‘designers’ (I hope) who understand the importance of narrative and story-telling for communication with other disciplines and for apprenticeship.
I’m saying it is about the context in which many ergonomists work, and the fact that people don’t necessarily label themselves as ergonomists, which results in a perceived lack of engagement with social media. I assume you can accept the rest of my post, as you misquoted me.
I’m not sure who, then, is “ignoring social media”, or who is “whining about blogging”, but it’s not me as I’m using it and writing one now. And as for traditional publishing, I’d partly agree, though there is certainly a place for relevant and useful science (if you can’t agree with that then we don’t share the same discipline at all) but my position is that *most* is neither.
I do a little publishing (my last paper about the problems of research!) but mostly I work by talking to people, all around Europe and often in person, but also via social media. As I said to Tony, I’d also agree that many in the profession could be more digitally minded, think about whatever is stopping them, and whether it is a real or perceived barrier, or just an excuse.
Well you prompted me to action (though I still think the above would be more accurate as “No blogs please, we’re ergonomists!”)! I started a new blog (rather than resurrecting the old one on HF in the news), this time completely independent and personal so I feel no pressure to keep up several entries a month!
http://humanisticbydesign.blogspot.com
First post: Human Factors & Humanistic Psychology: Distant cousins
A safe, healthy and happy 2012 to all.