Abstract
SAMUEL JOHNSO once observed how quietly people will endurey an evil which they might at any time very easily remedy ; he gave as an instance a family which had possessed an island for more than four hundred years and never made a commodious landing-place though a few men with pick-axes might have cut a staircase out of the rock in a week's time. At the recent meeting of the British Association at New castle upon Tyne, Section J (Psychology) held a discussion on the “Human Problems in the Design of Machinery and Working Methods", and it was emphasized that, although knowledge is increasing, even modern communities have as yet little scientific understanding of these questions. In fact, Dr. Johnson's remark still holds good to-day, because many instances were quoted at Newcastle in which ordinary common sense has been lacking in the planning of the physical, psychological and social environments in which men work.
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MACKWORTH, N. Human Problems of Work Design. Nature 164, 982–984 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/164982a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/164982a0