Methodological issues in the study of human factors in teleinformatic systems

The rapid technological developments in teleinformatics and their many implications for their users means that a human-factors contribution to both research and application is very pressing. This paper reviews the methodological problems confronting human-factors specialists in making this contribution. It examines methodological issues in research and design at the levels of (i) the man-computer interface and (ii) the organizational implications. The paper ends by presenting an idealized, integrated strategy which emphasizes action research to give priority to multidisciplinary teams of information technologists and human and social scientists working together to construct and evaluate telelinformatic systems.