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Dreyfuss, Design, and Human Factors

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DOI: 10.1177/106480460000800104

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Dreyfuss, Design, and Human Factors

Russell Flinchum
Ergonomics in Design: The Quarterly of Human Factors Applications 2000 8: 18
DOI: 10.1177/106480460000800104

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 HE INDUSTRIAL DESIGN PROFESSION IN
the United States traces its origin to the
late 1920s, when design offices were
founded in New York City by Norman
Bel Geddes, Walter Dorwin Teague,
Henry Dreyfuss, and Raymond Loewy.
Bel Geddes and his former understudy
Dreyfuss had experienced considerable
success in theatrical design, as had
Teague in the field of graphic design;
only Loewy, born in France, had any background in
engllleenng.
These pioneers, as they have been called, were really
the salesmen and coordinators of the talents of a diverse
pool of employees, and all sought to maintain their roles
as "authors" of their offices' designs, even when it
became apparent that their output exceeded the capa-
bilities of any individual. Whatever opinions we may
hold regarding the mythology of the early industrial
design profession, the field's impact on the built envi-

A brief history of

how a renowned

industrial designer

pioneered the use

of anthropometric

measures in

product design.

Figure 1. '7oe" standing at a Warner & Swasey turret

lathe, late 1950s. From The Measure of Man (1960).

BY RUSSELL FLINCHUM

18 ERGONOMICS IN DESIGN· WINTER 2000

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ronment was profound; an examination of the October
1940 issue of Architectural Forum, which reviews the
previous Design Decade (as the magazine dubbed the
1930s), reveals the predominance of the projects and
products arising from these and other design offices.
Henry Dreyfuss (1904-1972) was recognized in the
latter half of his career as "the conscience of the pro-
fession" by many of his contemporaries and was closely
associated with bringing anthropometics (now referred
to as anthropometry) to bear on industrial design. This
was realized in both the designs executed by his firm
and in the publication in 1960 of the collection of charts
of "Joe" and "Josephine" in The Measure of Man: Human
Factors in Design (see the illustration of Joe in Figure 1
on the previous page).
An assessment of Dreyfuss's importance came to me
in a letter from Walter Dorwin Teague, Jr., who had
Figure 2. Inte1'ior of lounge car, 20th Centlwy Limited
train, 1938. Two types of Luminator lighting, innovative
for their specificfunctions, are readily seen in this photo-
p'aph. Courtesy New York Central Historical Society, Inc.
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been active in the firm founded by his father before
establishing his own office. He wrote:
Dreyfuss's major contribution to the profes-
sion was his carefully constructed series of anthro-
pometric charts which designated all the most
important dimensions of men, women, and chil-
dren, that affected the design of products to be
used by people. No other industrial designers took
the time and effort to do this; we, myself included,
used Dreyfuss's charts when necessary.
In this article I explore the background leading up to
the creation of these charts with the hope of generat-
ing a broader discussion of the initial contacts between
industrial designers and human engineering psycholo-
gists (now called human factors/ergonomics profes-
sionals). My supposition, which has yet to be
contradicted by any knowledgeable source, is that
Henry Dreyfuss was the first industrial designer to
actively encourage the application of anthropometry to
Figure 3. Grouped, from left to right around a scale model
of the Convair Flying Car in 1947, are Henry Dreyfuss,
Bill Purcell, Strother MacMinn, and Charles Gerry.
Courtesy Strother MacMinn.
WINTER 2000 • ERGONOMICS IN DESIGN 19
 industrial design. Perhaps the most profound indication
of his importance was his receipt of the first Jack A.
Kraft Award of the Human Factors and Ergonomics
Society in 1971, "for significant efforts to extend or
diversify the application of human factors principles and
methods to new areas of endeavor."
Dreyfuss's Early Influences
During his first decade as an industrial designer,
Dreyfuss was as open to accusations of "styling" as any
of his contemporaries. Indeed, the 20th Century Limit-
ed train of 1938 stands as one of the hallmarks of
streamlining (see Figure 2, page 19). Yet even in this
avatar of that disposable aesthetic, some 14 lighting fix-
tures with specific functions marked a significant depar-
ture from its predecessors.
Dreyfuss also revealed an early penchant for investi-
gating the psychology of consumers. In an episode
recounted in his book Designing for People (1955), he
stood in for a salesperson at the counter of a department
store to gauge reactions to an alarm clock designed by
his office. To his dismay, a customer compared the new
design with one of its competitors by weighing each in
her hand and then purchasing the heavier one, equating
its mass with greater quality, even though Dreyfuss had
made a priority of making the new clock lighter.
He also wrote about the importance of "survival
form" - that is, carrying over some detail of a previous
design to a new one to reassure a public buying on
instinct (or so he would have us believe). His desire to
elevate his firm's designs above superficial repackaging
can be attributed to a range of influences, including a
purely commercial wish to distinguish his designs from
those of his competitors and attempts to please his wife
and partner, Doris Marks, whose own sense of aesthetics
eschewed unnecessary decoration. Whatever his motiva-
tions, one can safely say that by the end of the Design
Decade, Dreyfuss was eager to pursue a new path.
This desire probably found its realization in work for
the military during World War II, when he designed the
Strategy Rooms for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and de-
signed the bases for 105 -mm and 155 -mm artillery
pieces for the U.S. Army Ordnance Division, along with
other projects. "Q" clearance for his office staff, the
highest accorded to civilians, probably made the office
privy to developments unknown to many others.
The Focus Shifts to Comfort
It was only following the war, with the addition of
several important members to the office, that his prior-
ities shifted decisively. In short order, Robert H. Hose
joined as partner from a position as consultant to Bell
Telephone Laboratories, and William F. H. Purcell,
Hose's brother-in-law, also became partner, bringing
with him degrees in engineering and architecture. In
the long term, the most valuable member of the staff
20 ERGONOMICS IN DESIGN. WINTER 2000
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proved to be Alvin R. Tilley, who had a degree in
mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Tech-
nology in 1938 and had extensive experience working
for the Federal Shipping and Drydock Company dur-
ing World War II. After the war, Tilley worked briefly
in the office of Peggy Anne Rohde, widow of Gilbert
Rohde, the designer who brought Herman Miller Com-
pany around to modern design long before George Nel-
son was employed by that furniture company. Along
with Julian Everett, an architect by training who had
been with the office since the early 1930s, Dreyfuss had
assembled a very talented pool of designers with com-
plementary skills.
Though not a member of the office, Janet Travell,
who later became personal physician to Presidents
Kennedy and Johnson, had been consulting with Drey-
fuss since 1944. She specialized in skeletal and muscular
pain, dealing with the most difficult and intractable
cases. Travell became Dreyfuss's expert in seating
Dreyfuss revealed an early
penchant for investigating th
psychology of consumers.
design, and one of her insights was truly revelatory: Her
injured patients could quickly detect shortcomings in
seating design that might manifest themselves only after
many hours with healthy test participants. Their first
project together had been the seating for Convair's
"Flying Car" (see Figure 3 on the previous page), a mag-
nificent failure that made its debut in 1947 and was
quickly axed by Floyd OdIum, who was seeking to put
the aircraft manufacturer on sounder financial footing.
Another interesting project was undertaken for Bell
Labs to address complaints from its switchboard opera-
tors. Purcell, Tilley, and Travell collaborated on a bent-
plywood chair (see Figure 4, next page) in which
operators supported themselves using their legs on a
flat-section circular railing by canting the seat slightly
forward. Minimal armrests (often seen today in office
task furniture) helped provide some relaxation when
needed, and in a nod to the user, which exemplified the
Dreyfuss approach, a small bent-plywood shelf was pro-
vided under the seat for stowing handbags or other per-
sonal items. The shift from tall switchboards to consoles
meant the design never went into production.
During this period, work was begun on a child's bicy-
cle for American Machine and Foundry (AMF). This
innovative design began with home-movie footage of
children of varying ages riding bikes past a chain-link
fence; individual frames were blown up, and the positions
of seats and pedals were plotted against the happenstance
CONTINUED ON PAGE 23
 Figure 4. Left. Designed for Bell Telephone
Laboratories in 1946, this switchboard operators' chair
provided support, relaxation, and a shelf for storing
handbags. Cou1·tesy William F. H. Purcell.
Figure 5. Above right. Bicycle prototype for American
Machine and Foundry, 1953. This later prototype
undid the original "reversible" design described in the
text. Courtesy John Bruce.
Figure 6. Top. Robert H. Hose sketching ideasfor
the Model 500 telephone.

WINTER 2000 • ERGONOMICS IN DESIGN 2 I

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 Figure 7. Left. Wood handset prototypes leading to the Type G
handset of 1949, which remains in production and is still
widely used in pay telephones.
Figure 9. Below. Tank driver's compartment for the U.S. Army
Ordnance Division, 1953. Mockup of the compartment appears on
the left, with Alvin Tilley's analysis on right.

Figure 8. Below. Model

302 telephone (left) of 1937
compared with the Model
500 (1949).

22 ERGONOMICS IN DESIGN· WINTER 2000

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 grid of the fence. A test stand was built in the office, and
staff were invited to "ride" it, first in the position in which
the previous subject had left the seat and pedals and then
in the positions they chose as most comfortable. In typi-
cal Dreyfuss fashion, a scrapbook-like History of the Bicy-
cle (c. 1947, since lost except for a microfilm copy) was
assembled to make sure that no innovative ideas from the
past had been overlooked. In its final form, the stamped-
steel frame of the bike could be flipped to provide boy's
or girl's versions (see Figure 5, page 21). This project's
demise came when AMF realized that the money to be
saved by this scheme would be going into the pockets of
retailers rather than the manufacturer.
The most famous design from this period produced
by Dreyfuss's firm was the Model 500 telephone, which
began development in 1946 with a stunning range of
proposals sketched by Hose and others (see Figure 6,
page 21). It debuted in 1949 and remained in produc-
tion, with minor modifications, for the next 33 years, a
measure of its stylistic durability during the heyday of
planned obsolescence.
In consultations with Bell Labs engineers, many of
these advanced concepts proved impractical in light of
the necessary accommodation of the guts of the new
phone. Work on the handset progressed rapidly, with
wooden mockups being tested for feel (Figure 7, page
22). Beginning with the Type F handset of 1937, Drey-
fuss's designers and modelmakers created a series of
forms ranging from nearly geometric to the "mongrel,"
as they referred to the lumpy rectangle cross-section of
This project's demise came when AMF
realized that the money to be saved by
this scheme would be going into the
pocl<ets of retailers rather than the
man ufactu rer.
the eventual Type G handset (second from the top,
right side of Figure 7).
Dreyfuss's input to the Model 500 was somewhat
limited but essential; Purcell recalled in an interview
that Dreyfuss was presented with a model of the new
phone and pronounced that it gave him "griptophobia"
when he picked up the handset (one must remember
that its predecessor was also a Dreyfuss design). When
the irritated Dreyfuss slammed the handset into the clay
mock-up of the base, cracking it, Purcell convinced him
that this validated the design; the flattened, not
triangular, back of the handset helped assure that the
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connection would be broken properly (the receiver-off-
hook problem was a bhe noire to the Bell Telephone
Laboratories staff). An additional benefit of the flat-
tened section, not noted at the time, was that it allowed
the handset to be cradled between the shoulder and ear,
freeing the user's hands. The handset design presented
to Dreyfuss that day remains in production and is still
widely used in pay telephones.
The Model 500 project also marked the first direct
contact between Dreyfuss and a human factors profes-
sional. John Karlin had been hired by Bell Telephone
Laboratories in 1946, the first human engineering psy-
chologist to work in private industry. One of his first
duties was to assess the performance of the new tele-
phone. Much to the dismay of the project managers,
Karlin found that dialing time increased by a fraction
of a second with the new model compared with its pre-
decessor.
What went wrong? Examining the two phones side
by side (see Figure 8) makes the difference apparent;
the earlier model had a white background beneath its
fingerwheel, with the numbers and letters inside the
holes. Users had often scratched or defaced these with
fingernails, pencils, or pens when dialing, so the num-
bers and letters were moved to the exterior of the dial in
the new design. Dreyfuss claimed this also ended the
annoying flicker created when the fingerwheel was in
motion. Unfortunately, when the Model 500 first
appeared, it had a black metal fingerwheel against a
black background, and test participants had difficulty
determining when the fingerwheel stopped moving.
The practical solution was to add "aiming dots" beneath
the holes of the fingerwheel. Dreyfuss disingenuously
pointed out that these dots had speeded up dialing time.
Stimulus for the
Anthropometry Drawings
By 1951, the intuitive approach that had guided the
office seemed insufficient for the growing number of
projects involving interaction between human and
machine. Deere & Company tractors, Hyster forklifts,
and passenger interiors for Lockheed's Super-G Con-
stellation aircraft were all on the drawing boards. One
project of immediate concern was the design of a tank
driver's compartment for the U.S. Army (see Figure 9
on page 22). An already cramped interior posed an addi-
tional problem: the driver had to be able to view ter-
rain through a periscope while the tank was closed, but
more typically his head would protrude through an open
hatch. A full-scale mockup was constructed, but only
after the designers realized that two different seating
positions would have to be accommodated. This appar-
ently called for the drawing of the first of the "Joe"
charts, more general versions of which would appear in
Dreyfuss's Designing for People (1955), and in greater
detail in The Measure of Man (1960).
WINTER 2000 • ERGONOMICS IN DESIGN 23
 According to John Bruce, a designer active in the office
during this period, Dreyfuss called Julian Everett, Alvin
Tilley, Anne Shortess (who covered many special assign-
ments but was not a designer), and Bruce into his office.
He told this group that he was ready to prioritize the
development of a guide to human dimensions in design
and that it would be up to them to seek out the sources of
information. Many of these sources, familiar to the first
generation of human factors specialists in the United
States, were cited in the bibliography accompanying The
Measure of Man. Not as familiar were the less formal
Tilley stated that the major change
had witnessed over nearly 50 years in
the design field was the increasing
pressure to bring products to market
as quickly as possible.
inquiries: calls to dress designers on Seventh Avenue
inquiring about typical female dimensions, which were
pencilled into the margin of one of Tilley's notebooks.
This reliance on anecdotal information would natu-
rally be criticized by the more rigorous, experiment-ori-
ented human factors professionals, who often benefited
from more lenient schedules and better funding, unlike
the industrial designers, who often work under tight
budgets and tighter deadlines. This is a key to under-
standing one source of friction between this communi-
ty and its counterparts in human factors research. Tilley
stated in an interview with me in the early 1990s that
the major change he had witnessed over nearly 50 years
in the design field was the increasing pressure to bring
products to market as quickly as possible. Speaking of
the Model 500 telephone project, he said, "Then we had
two years; today you'd be lucky to have two months."
As I researched this area more fully, Tilley emerged
as the unsung hero of this story, a dedicated, driven, but
self-effacing figure whom former partner James N.
Conner called "the backbone of the office for many
years." Trained as a design engineer, Tilley focused on
the development of practical tools of immediate use to
the office and on their publication for the professional
community. Conner, with a sound education in engi-
neering from Stanford and aesthetics from Cranbrook,
queried Tilley after the publication of The Measure of
Man as to whether there shouldn't be some notation on
the charts as to the source of the information. Tilley
summarized his thinking concisely:
Our information is a summation of practical
data for our type of use. Some material is a com-
24 ERGONOMICS IN DESIGN. WINTER
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po site of many different sources; some informa-
tion is extrapolated. If reference sources were
given for each piece of data, the book would be-
come so voluminous and complex as to be imprac-
tical; also we might receive criticism for taking
material out of context .... Some day, better data
will be available. Until then, we must make use of
the tools we now have.
Although some human factors/ergonomics profes-
sionals have taken issue with the Joe charts and their
derivations, industrial designers quickly adopted them,
and they no doubt made a rising generation aware of a
new level of complexity in shaping the built environment.
he
Through later revisions (a second edition in 1967, the
Humanscale series of the 1970s and 1980s, and The Mea-
sure of Man and Woman, published in 1994), the Drey-
fuss office constantly worked to refine these tools. They
constituted a gift of many thousands of hours of labor to
the profession and stand as the prime example of Drey-
fuss's dedication to making industrial design a profes-
sional activity rather than a series of styling exercises.
Today, designers are better informed than ever in
this area, and human factors experts are found in many
leading design firms. Yet, the fundamental challenge
faced by Dreyfuss and his contemporaries remains with
us today: If good design cannot be made commercially
viable, efforts to establish a better fit between humans
and their machines will fall by the wayside. A closer col-
laboration between practitioners in both fields is essen-
tial to realize the promise of safe, functional, and even
beautiful products reaching a growing audience.
Bibliography
Diffrient, N., Tilley, A., & Bardagjy, J. C. (1974). HU'l1lanscale 1/2/3.
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Diffrient, N., Tilley, A., & Harman, D. (1981a). Humanscale 4/5/6.
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Diffrient, N., Tilley, A., & Harman, D. (1981b). Humanscale 7/8/9.
Cambridge. MIT Press
Dreyfuss, H. (1955). Designingfor people. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Dreyfuss, H. (1960). The measure of man: Human factors in design. New
York: Whitney Library of Design. (2nd ed., 1971)
Flinchum, R. (1997). Henry Dreyfuss, industrial designer. New York:
Rizzoli/National Design Museum.
Myers, H. (1940, October). Design decade. Architectural Forum. Spe-
cial issue devoted to design in the United States, 1930-1940.
Tilley, A. (1994). The measure of man and woman - Human factors in
design. New York: Watson-Guptill.
Russell Flinchum was the fSUestcurator for the National Design
Museum's exhibition on Dreyfuss in 1997. His book Henry
Dreyfuss, Industrial Designer, received numerous awards, in-
cludingfrom the New Yark State HistoricalAssociation.He may be
reachedat P. O. Box 967,Bronxville, NY 10708-0967. mil
2000