Data Analytics in Human Factors

Data analytics describes the use, manipulation, cleaning, processing, and analysis of data to reach conclusions. Taken at face value, there is nothing new about data analytics from a human factors perspective. A single, massive, multimodal data set could potentially be used for innumerable analytical purposes by a vast range of interested stakeholders, from marketers, health scientists, and governments, to criminals and terrorist organizations. The use of live data to detect workload-related risk enables a conceptual shift from reactivity to proactivity. Link analysis, in which similar principles are applied to "interface networks, " is a more development but nonetheless performs particularly well on measures of reliability. In the generic urban systems abstraction hierarchy, linked nodes are assigned a weight of one, representing full functionality. By explicitly linking the tangible infrastructure within a city to the intangible social outcomes through functionality, new insights can be generated on how city systems can adapt to pressing global challenges.