Manifeste pour l'ergonomie prospective: anticiper de futures activités humaines en vue de concevoir de nouveaux artéfacts

Abstract

This article is at first a text of critical reflections, epistemological controversies and speculative positioning on the evolution of ergonomics. It aims at discussing about the future of the discipline, by considering a temporal evolution that sees the development of ergonomics through the past, present, and future of human activity. When ergonomics is applied for correcting (or improving) existing situations, it is corrective. When it is called for acting on current situations, it is ergonomics for design. And when it is considered for dealing with future needs, it becomes prospective. Thus, this article reconsiders the distinction between corrective ergonomics and ergonomics for design in order to propose a third avenue to the discipline: Prospective ergonomics. This can be defined as the part of ergonomics whose goal is to study, in collaboration with other disciplines, the technical, social, cultural and economic factors that shape the evolution of human activities, so as to define, design, and realise human-centered innovations, that are useful and beneficial to humans in terms of comfort, performance, pleasure and/or personal development.