Because the Navy needs tools to assess the personnel implications of proposed equipment and system designs, a literature search was conducted in 1978 to determine how hardware design engineers perceive the relationships between system design characteristics and the skills of the system operator and maintenance personnel. Recent studies conducted by the human resources research community were reviewed, especially research on the design process and skill information needs of designers, job performance, the analysis and measurement of skills, and the presentation of human resources information. It was found that engineers were responsive to human resources constraints when such constraints were presented as design requirements, but that they consistently ranked human resources data as less important than other aspects of system design. This publication presents the literature review and recommends that, in defining the techniques needed to communicate human resources data to design engineers, research be directed toward developing a better understanding of how engineers perceive the relationship between design characteristics and resulting skill implications, and that specific operational definitions of skills applicable to Navy ratings and pay grades be developed in terms and formats readily understandable to and directly usable by hardware designers. A 46-item bibliography is provided. (ESR)