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Engineers make things that are useful to people. In collaboration with designers, ergonomists make things that are usable by people. The concept of usability means making artifacts easy, efficient and comfortable to use (anything from a corkscrew to a control room in a nuclear power station).
Most people have experience of poorly designed objects. At best they cause frustration and annoyance (for example when a video recorder fails to record your favourite program). At worst they can lead to injury or even death (as in the release of radioactive material from a nuclear reactor).
(Neville A. Stanton and Mark S. Young, Nature, 399, 197 - 198 (20 May 1999))
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