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Tracy Yee's mother always thought her daughter would put her talent for making people more comfortable towards a career as a flight attendant or registered nurse. Needless to say, she was a little surprised when her daughter went off to engineering school.

"I was always good at knowing what people's needs would be," says Yee. "My mom always told me I should be working with the public, and in a way, I am."

Yee is a human factors specialist -- an ergonomist. It's her job to help design products and environments to be well suited to their human users.

"It only makes sense to me that the places where we live and work, the cars we drive and the products we use should be made to work for people. After all, who else would we be making them for?"

It sounds like a logical idea, but ergonomics is far from simple. Ergonomics uses principles of psychology, engineering and physiology to find the safest, most productive and user-friendly products and environments.

"One of the biggest myths about ergonomics is that anyone can do this. Many people think moving their office furniture around to make it more convenient makes them an ergonomist. To me, that's about the same as thinking putting a Band-Aid on a cut makes you a doctor," says Yee.

The principles of ergonomics are incredibly complex, although often even the simplest concepts are overlooked. Yee says people have become accustomed to designs that don't fit the user. She believes we often blame ourselves for not understanding something, when the problem actually lies with the design.

Yee encountered a good example of such poor design a while back. She had rented a car and stopped at a gas station to fill it up.

"It was a fairly new car, so I looked for the lever to release the door covering the gas cap. I was looking on the side of the seat, on the dashboard, in all the logical places. Finally I decided I'd have to look in the manual, and when I opened up the glove compartment, there was the lever I'd been looking for."

This sounds like a minor inconvenience, but by the time Yee found the gas tank lever, the lineup of cars behind her were honking and the attendant was impatient. The experience left her flustered and anxious. When she got back out on the road, she was not driving with the same level of concentration as she had before.

"That is the point at which this non-ergonomic design became not only an inconvenience, but a danger to the human user," says Yee.

Still, you don't necessarily have to be a full-fledged ergonomist to work in ergonomics. Alan Cantor works to "further the interests of people with disabilities in the workplace and in higher education."

So where does ergonomics fit into his career? Here's an example:

"One of my clients has cerebral palsy," he explains. "His most reliable control site is his left foot, and he operates a computer entirely with a single toe using an oversized, floor-mounted keyboard angled towards him. One of the keys he needed to press every few minutes was located in the corner of the keyboard. Whenever he reached for this key, he lost his balance and began to fall out of his wheelchair.

"The only way he kept from falling was by jamming his toe under the monitor, which was positioned just above the keyboard. I solved this problem by using a software utility to re-map his keyboard so that ALL of the keys he needed to use were within easy reach of his toe," he says.

Cantor also helped a call center employee who types with one finger and has poor coordination to use a computer "at a speed comparable to her co-workers." He taught her to use the computer without having to touch the mouse, and he says that increased her speed by a factor of 20.

This type of user training is "almost always THE most important contributor to the success of a workplace accommodation or ergonomic adjustment," says Cantor. He says that in his work, he gets "more mileage" by modifying work habits than by changing equipment.

"But it's hard to change work habits. It takes time, coaching, motivation....Some employers are looking for quick-fix solutions, and in many cases, there are no easy solutions."

As an environmental ergonomist, Yee researches and redesigns office workplaces so they are convenient, safe and productive for the people in those environments.

"Many large companies are paring down, going to the minimum number of employees and wanting them to be as productive as possible. It's my job to ensure nothing in the built environment gets in the way of this productivity," says Yee.

Yee says companies lose millions of dollars every year because of employee injuries or illnesses that happen on the job.

"A lot of the time, people don't even realize the cause of their illness. For example, you might find a number of employees with bad backs or necks because of poor office chairs...or employees with respiratory problems because of poor ventilation systems."

Just getting employees healthy and back to work doesn't mean the company will achieve maximum productivity, however. Yee believes a lot of things in the office environment can interfere with the work needing to be done.

"Take lighting conditions, for example. A number of studies have shown flickering light conditions, like the ones achieved by the use of fluorescent lights, often cause mental disturbances in the people who are exposed to them for a long time. This can range from irrational feelings to depression," says Yee.

Yee believes the design of office furniture, the level of noise in an area, the temperature of the office and the convenience of office equipment are just some of the factors that can have a huge effect on people's satisfaction and productivity in their workplace.

Often when Yee begins a project with a company, the people who work for the company don't see a problem with their work environment, so they can't understand why an ergonomist is needed. After her ideas are put in place, however, work absentee rates are much lower and overall productivity goes up.

"When I have gone back and done follow-up research on my projects, I've always been surprised with the level of success my work has met with," says Yee. "It's very rewarding to know you are making a difference to the way people spend 40 hours of their time each week."