The origins of Human Factors Engineering can be traced back to the aviation industry during World War II. After a series of accidents that resulted from frequently occuring “pilot errors,” engineers began to question whether it was truly the pilots at fault.
One of the most common problems involved pilots accidentally retracting the landing gear instead of the aircraft flaps. The reason for this mistake was a design flaw since these components looked and felt too similar to each other and were easy to mistaken. The solution was to engineer new controls with landing gear that looked like a wheel and flaps shaped like a wing.
Focusing on the user’s needs for safety and convenience in WW2 sparked the takeoff of this ever-growing engineering discipline of Human Factors Engineering.
Sources: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/history-breadth-human-factors-martin-robb-cpe/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4f81ZS19v8