When the first edition of this handbook was published in 1986, it was the most comprehensive, single-source coverage of the discipline of human factors/ergonomics ever compiled. As such, it represented a milestone in the discipline. It received the Institute of Industrial Engineers Joint Publishers Book of the Year Award and has enjoyed considerable success for the publisher. It subsequently was published in both Japanese and Russian. Over the ten years that followed, much change took place, including major breakthroughs in digital and telecommunications technologies, materials development, and software design. These changes have profoundly affected human-system interfaces and the related science and practice of human factors or ergonomics. As a result, the second edition of this handbook represents a complete revision of the original, including 23 entirely new chapters.
As with the first edition, the goal of the second edition was to make it the most comprehensive and state-of-the-art coverage of all aspects of the discipline. To accomplish this, the handbook's editor, Gavriel Salvendy, convened an international board of 25 distinguished ergonomics scholars and practitioners to develop the handbook's structure and select authors for each of its chapters. The resulting handbook contains 60 chapters written by over 100 authors who are internationally recognized for their expertise in their respective subject areas. In total, the authors gathered information from over 5500 references.
The book chapters are organized into nine functional sections, as follows: The Human Factors Function; Human Factors Fundamentals; Job Design;