Company personnel other than design engineers can also share their creativity as well as lessons they have learned. The assumptions can then be corrected or refined. Use of these techniques in the discovery phase encourages all relevant parties to communicate their ideas and allows designers to integrate those ideas efficiently. Companies that use these techniques will decrease their time to market, have fewer failures of new products, and improve their market success. The human factors methods described below should be integrated with the training, documentation, and quality assurance activities performed in the early stages of design.
Subsequent hazard analyses can then use the data and results generated in the discovery phase.
For instance, comprehensive lists of failures can be created by using failure mode and effects analysis. Of course, human factors methods can and should be blended with other approaches. A team made up of personnel from many parts of the company, such as domain experts, engineers, marketers, quality managers, regulatory staff, and project managers, chooses a particular focus. Ideally, upper management should also be involved. The main phases of contextual inquiry.