Beth Blickensderfer

Background

About Beth Blickensderfer

When one of the early Apple computers came out, my mom had trouble finding the on/off button. I soon realized that it wasn’t just my mom having trouble using the new technology. The same type of problem occurred with my classmates in the new computer lab at my college. Although I was fascinated with these sparkling new pieces of technology, I saw that some users had difficulty interacting with the machines. I found myself naturally drawn to helping my peers with this experience. Why can’t it be easy for everyone? I also enjoyed my psychology classes. These interests led me to the field of human factors and ergonomics, and I never looked back. Working largely in the aviation and military training systems domain, I have acquired a wealth of research, simulation, training, human performance assessment, and usability experience. Along the way, I’ve met a continual stream of great people. I’ve worked with other human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) researchers, engineers, domain experts, researchers from other disciplines, and program managers. People at all levels have touched my career, and I am grateful for having had these experiences. It is always a joy to collaborate with new people as well as reunite with my old friends on new projects. What’s next? Many shared characteristics exist between military, aviation, and medicine, not the least of which is humans operating sophisticated technological systems in high-stakes environments. My current work focuses on understanding how general aviation pilots make weather related decisions and how we can help them to better understand weather. I am also working on developing performance metrics in healthcare (in particular for nursing). My experience includes: identifying and conveying user needs, analyzing tasks from the user standpoint, understanding user decision making, working with multidisciplinary teams, making sense out of new technology, user testing protocols, and cognitive task analysis.