Abstract
Operator error has been blamed for many accidents in complex, hazardous work-systems such as nuclear power plants and aircraft. Safety engineering is concerned with analysing and quantifying the severity of hazards and the risks associated with such systems in order to guide design. It is clear that, in the design of human-machine interfaces for such systems, the severity of potential hazards and the risk of accidents occurring may dominate the design problem. It is less clear that, when considering interfaces for more everyday computer applications, the impact of individual operations, and the risk of undesirable events may be just as important to the quality of the design. However, the combined effect of many small errors and inconveniences for many users may represent a significant cost to organisations using the software.
In this paper, we make an initial exploration of an approach to interactive system design (as opposed to assessment) that seeks to exploit concepts of impact and margin derived from safety engineering. Our aim is to provide a means to guide designers towards safer interface designs.
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© 1996 Springer-Verlag London Limited
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Dearden, A.M., Harrison, M.D. (1996). Impact as a Human Factor in Interactive System Design. In: Redmill, F., Anderson, T. (eds) Safety-Critical Systems: The Convergence of High Tech and Human Factors. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1480-2_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1480-2_12
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-76009-2
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