# Human Factors **Domain:** Design / Safety / Human-Machine Systems **Doc Type:** Canonical Discipline Node **Maturity:** Foundational ## Definition **Human factors** studies how systems can be designed around human capabilities, limitations, attention, error and work practices. ## Evolutionary Nexus Expert systems, genome browsers and aerospace hardware in [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] become operational only through interfaces and institutions used by people. ## Continuity Context For continuity infrastructure, human factors governs consent, comprehensible control, emergency intervention and the ability to detect silent failure. A technically correct system can still be unsafe when its interface misrepresents state or authority. ## Space Habitat Context [[articles/Breakaway Space Habitat Infrastructure?|Breakaway Space Habitat Infrastructure]] shows that habitation is not only a pressure-vessel problem. In [[wiki/Rotating Space Habitats|rotating space habitats]], Coriolis effects, vestibular adaptation, visual orientation, circulation routes, privacy, ritual, work design, and emergency movement become coupled engineering constraints. [[wiki/Closed-Loop Life Support|Closed-Loop Life Support]] must be operable, interpretable, and repairable by people under isolation and stress. Human factors therefore separates a technically functioning enclosure from a livable habitat. Automation can reduce workload, but it can also hide degraded state or shift authority into systems occupants cannot understand or override. ## See Also [[wiki/Clinical Decision Support|Clinical Decision Support]], [[wiki/Design for Dignity|Design for Dignity]], [[wiki/Machine Vision|Machine Vision]], [[wiki/Continuity Telemetry|Continuity Telemetry]], [[wiki/Substrate-Relative Habitability|Substrate-Relative Habitability]]