About this Research Topic
Worker well-being is a key factor for the success of any productive activity in the labour market. Even though research has studied the well-being aspects, such as support and improvement of ergonomics, there is still a long way to go to achieve a sustainable and healthy work environment. Amongst others, the emerging Industry 5.0 paradigm complements a technological focus with more attention for the human worker. This new paradigm becomes even more critical considering the ageing population in many countries.
This Research Topic covers research that aims to provide human-centred technological solutions empowering workers, ensure a healthy, safe and sustainable working style, and contribute to the short and long-term development of soft and hard skills. This Research Topic offers a venue for researchers focusing on interactive systems supporting worker well-being. We aim to provide insights into factors that influence the cognitive well-being of operators (e.g., stress, focus, fatigue) and physical well-being. To achieve this goal, the research community must tackle several challenges: from defining which sensors to use to monitor physical and cognitive well-being parameters to the appropriate communication strategies—respecting privacy— that contribute to the workers’ well-being while maintaining the same level of productivity. After all, a workforce whose well-being is suboptimally managed will face increased absenteeism, and a lack of motivation and be more amenable to safety hazards on the work floor.
We invite submissions that define the domain and analyse its challenges (survey papers, theory and reference frameworks), as well as papers that describe, design, specify and validate innovative software solutions to support and improve worker well-being, from rehabilitation sciences, ergonomics, labour psychology, industrial and software engineering perspectives are welcomed.
* Topics of interest include, but are not limited to *
- Intelligible user interfaces and interaction design
- Persuasive design
- Inclusive design for the workplace
- Explainable AI
- Safety-critical systems
- Well-being, workable work and office vitality
- IoT and the connected work floor
- Mental Health (e.g. Depression, Stress, Anxiety)
- Office/workplace ergonomics
- Physical and cognitive workload
- XR for industrial tasks (training and on-the-job guidance)
- Human-Robot and Human-Machine Interaction (e.g. exoskeletons, cobots)
- Human-data interaction
- Physicalisation
- Future of work
- Novel methodologies for validating such solutions
This Research Topic covers research that aims to provide human-centred technological solutions empowering workers, ensure a healthy, safe and sustainable working style, and contribute to the short and long-term development of soft and hard skills. This Research Topic offers a venue for researchers focusing on interactive systems supporting worker well-being. We aim to provide insights into factors that influence the cognitive well-being of operators (e.g., stress, focus, fatigue) and physical well-being. To achieve this goal, the research community must tackle several challenges: from defining which sensors to use to monitor physical and cognitive well-being parameters to the appropriate communication strategies—respecting privacy— that contribute to the workers’ well-being while maintaining the same level of productivity. After all, a workforce whose well-being is suboptimally managed will face increased absenteeism, and a lack of motivation and be more amenable to safety hazards on the work floor.
We invite submissions that define the domain and analyse its challenges (survey papers, theory and reference frameworks), as well as papers that describe, design, specify and validate innovative software solutions to support and improve worker well-being, from rehabilitation sciences, ergonomics, labour psychology, industrial and software engineering perspectives are welcomed.
* Topics of interest include, but are not limited to *
- Intelligible user interfaces and interaction design
- Persuasive design
- Inclusive design for the workplace
- Explainable AI
- Safety-critical systems
- Well-being, workable work and office vitality
- IoT and the connected work floor
- Mental Health (e.g. Depression, Stress, Anxiety)
- Office/workplace ergonomics
- Physical and cognitive workload
- XR for industrial tasks (training and on-the-job guidance)
- Human-Robot and Human-Machine Interaction (e.g. exoskeletons, cobots)
- Human-data interaction
- Physicalisation
- Future of work
- Novel methodologies for validating such solutions
Keywords: Human-Computer Interaction, Worker well-being, Industry 5.0, Intelligible user interfaces, XR for industry, Future of work, Explainable AI
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
