Richard Esplin wrote: > Donald A Norman advocates shunning such excuses: > > "The designer must consider the properties of all the system components -- > including the humans -- as well as their interactions. The various technical > publications of the field attest to a concern with software and hardware, but > emphasis on human functionality and capability is lacking. Many failures of > information systems are attributed to human error rather than to the design. > We are going to suffer continued failures until we learn to change our > approach. > > "One of the first things needed is a change in attitude. The behavior we call > human error is just as predictable as system noise, perhaps more so: > therefore, instead of blaming the human who happens to be involved, it would > be better to try to identify the system characteristics that led to the > incident and then to modify the design, either to eliminate the situation or > at least to minimize the impact for future events. One major step would be to > remove the term 'human error' from our vocabulary and to re-evaluate the need > to blame individuals. A second major step would be to develop design > specifications that consider the functionality of the human with the same > degree of care that has been given to the rest of the system." > > http://jnd.org/dn.mss/commentary_human_error_and_the_design_of_computer_systems.html > > I highly recommend reading his books. > > Richard > > I would say this is only true when the system designer has the same goals in mind as the user. Otherwise, human error will be exploited in favor of the designer; as so aptly demonstrated in this case.
The sad part is, human error is exploitable no matter how well trained your user is. It reminds me of an IT Manager I know of that had the bright idea of spending hours in lines buying collector pins during the 2002 Olympics which he flipped on eBay for a $50K profit. Then lost it all a few months later to a Nigerian scam. ;-Daniel -------------------- BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ The opinions expressed in this message are the responsibility of their author. They are not endorsed by BYU, the BYU CS Department or BYU-UUG. ___________________________________________________________________ List Info (unsubscribe here): http://uug.byu.edu/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
