Use your understanding of human cognition and behaviour to design, improve and adapt products, processes, and systems in terms of efficiency, usability, or safety.
In our daily life, we interact with all kinds of products, processes and systems. Think of your smartphone, computers, cars, or even robots, but also less tangible concepts, such as work processes or newsgathering. How do you make sure these interactions are successful? For example, what does it take for people to trust autonomous cars? And how do humans interact with chatbots sufficiently? The specialisation in Human Factors & Engineering Psychology will provide you with an in-depth understanding of human cognition and behaviour, in order to design, improve and adapt products, processes and systems to complement human behaviour and capabilities.
What to expect?
New technologies can be perfectly engineered, but if you don’t take human factors into account, the product in itself becomes useless, or even worse: unsafe. After all, products, systems, or processes are designed to serve human beings and not vice versa. So, what does it take to make these interactions effective, efficient, safe, and user-friendly? To answer this question, cognitive psychology is the central starting point. Within this specialisation, you will delve deeper into how the human mind – with its strengths and weaknesses – works, and learn to predict human behaviour in human-technical systems.
From healthcare to the automotive industry and from robotics/AI to the gaming industry, there’s a wide variety of topics you could explore within this specialisation. You could research the usability and safety of in-vehicle information systems or focus on Virtual Reality-based training simulators that help surgeons enhance surgical operations. Moreover, you could focus on physical, organisational and cognitive aspects that reflect different spectrums of the human experience, such as memory, attention, motor learning and performance, workload, and alertness. But also: how does today’s digitally advanced society impact our brain, habits and ways of thinking? Do we still trust technology with the current massive distribution of artificial intelligence? If these questions intrigue you, this specialisation will suit you perfectly.
What will you learn?
As a graduate of this Master's and this specialisation, you have acquired specific, scientific knowledge, skills and values, which you can put to good use in your future job.
Other master's and specialisations
Is this specialisation not exactly what you are looking for? Maybe one of the other specialisations suits you better. Or find out more about these other master’s:
- Master’s in Interaction Technology
- Master’s in Industrial Design Engineering (specialisation in Human Technology Relations)