The emphasis in ergonomics has been on ways to reduce fatigue by designing tasks within people's work capabilities. The goal of an ergonomics work program is to achieve the optimal match between persons doing work and the overall work environment. It is often used by persons to express their personal bias or prejudice concerning the behavior of certain people related to a specific event being examined. It is also a term that typically is arrogantly intended to apply to everyone except the speaker. As such, it is a term that should not be used by human factors professionals.
Human error can only be a valid concept under certain specific conditions.
This concept is at the core of human factors engineering. It recognizes that humans are complex creatures having not only a wide range of capabilities but a corresponding wide range of limitations. Humans are bound by specific innate characteristics, that are not subject to significant change, which dictate specific behavior under particular circumstances. Such behavior must be considered as part of human nature and not mislabeled as human error. Random errors committed by system operators are nonpredictable by both system designers and operators.