Alphonse Chapanis
Alphonse Chapanis (March 17, 1917 – October 4, 2002) was an American pioneer in the field of
ergonomics or human factors – the science of ensuring that design takes account of human characteristics.[1]
Biography
Chapanis received a PhD in Psychology from Yale University in 1943.[2]
He was notably active in improving aviation safety around the time of World War II, although his career covered a wide range of domains and applications.
One of his major contributions was
flaps and landing gear were confused, the consequences of which could be severe. Chapanis proposed attaching a wheel to the end of the landing gear control and a triangle to the end of the flaps control, to enable them to be easily distinguished by touch alone. Thereafter for that aircraft there were no further instances of the landing gear being mistakenly raised while the aircraft was still on the ground.[3] This particular shape-coding of the landing gear lever is still regulated for use in civil aircraft.[4]
In 1949 he published the first textbook on the subject of
ergonomics, Applied Experimental Psychology: Human Factors in Engineering Design.[5]
In the 1950s, Chapanis worked with Bell Labs on the design of push-button telephone handsets, conducting experiments that led to the present layout of the keys.[6]
References
- ^ Nick Joyce. (2013). "Alphonse Chapanis: Pioneer in the Application of Psychology to Engineering Design". Association for Psychological Science.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-02-10.
- ISBN 978-1-591-84822-6.
- ISBN 9780768099430.
- ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved February 10, 2016.
- ^ Dudek, Virginia (October 2, 1984). "Alphonse Chapanis: 'There are criteria that could be used to make things easier'". PC Magazine: 64. Retrieved February 10, 2016.
Further reading
- The Chapanis Chronicles, 1999 (autobiography)[1]
- The Human Factor 2004, by Kim Vicente (pp. 75-76, 98-99)
External links
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- ISBN 978-0-9636178-9-7.