The STARS effort has been initiated to provide the technology and organizational mechanisms to meet the demands for increased software productivity, functionality, and system reliability imposed by Dod mission requirements. Since the 1940's, the discipline of human engineering has successfully applied knowledge of human capabilities and limitations to the design of military systems to achieve optimal user effectiveness, efficiency, comfort, and safety compatible with system requirements. The Human Engineering Task Area should utilize that knowledge base concerning users' physical and cognitive limitations and extend it to the arena of computer hardware and software to produce methodologies and tools which will enhance productivity and quality throughout the life cycle of embedded computer systems. While this task area will focus on the user in the broadest sense, attention should be primarily directed to two major groups of users: the end users of DoD embedded computer systems, and the personnel involved in software development and support. For this latter group, the Human Engineering Task Area is concerned not only with the user interface to the automated support environment but with the human factors of the entire software development and support process.