Tangible Technology for the Potential Diversity of Users

Critical demographic changes today, the fast and intensive technological development, and concerns about new threats and stresses lead to new realities and new educational needs at the highest levels. In the field of transport, the coming years will require a focus on providing transport systems with a robust adaptation ability to manage fast and unexpected changes, planning, and learning from each one. Human resources should be prepared for continuous learning, adapting their activities to technological development. Their education and training should stimulate creativity as a resource to anticipate, adapt, and improve. In this perspective, new needs and priorities have been identified to be met by anticipating and reinforcing the adaptation ability, constructing innovative knowledge and tools in favor of the required adaptation to a changing world and fast technological development. Targeting success in a changing society, the mission of designing and developing systems for human use requires a human-centered design (HCD) approach, integrating technology, organization, and people from the very beginning of the design process and along each system’s life cycle. HCD promotes a proactive approach in designing, developing, and testing new systems with real and potential users to ensure the required system’s usability. This is an essential quality of every technology to ease the users’ adaptation and task performance. HCD anticipates, identifies, and prevents potential adverse effects related to human health, safety, and performance by targeting effective, efficient, and sustainable systems. Using simulation in the early design phases, the natural evolution of HCD and Systems Engineering (SE) represents the roots of Human–System Integration.