AVI/Psych 358/IE 340: Human Factors Technology Wreaking Havoc September 3, 2008

Admin Read Chapter 3 for Friday Quiz 1 (on Monday): What’s included: everything discussed till Friday Slides, chapters 1 and 2 from book Multiple choice, short answers (~15 minutes) Check course website for updates (psych358.blogspot.com)

Group Activity (Due Monday) Look around your house/apartment and take pictures of TWO badly designed objects Annotate/Mark picture to clarify your point Upload your picture on the Facebook group (2 pictures per group), so others can see Must be completed before class on Monday Tag your pictures with your team number (e.g., Team 1) HW 1 will be based on this (so think a little bit about your choices)

My Example: Monitor Difficult to plug the monitor cable due to the location of the socket

Chernobyl Tragedy April 1986, Nuclear Reactor incident What were the causes?

Chernobyl Tragedy HF Causes Complex controls were not understood by the operators Effects of certain actions were not clear (e.g., limited feedback)

Mercedes E 320 Oil Check Five step process What makes it less intuitive?

Medical Errors Between 40,000 and 100,000 preventable deaths due to medical errors What are the possible causes of medical errors? Neglect (physicians, care providers) Misdiagnosis Stress (physicians, care providers Wrong medicines

Other Examples Airlines Airport Security Several other examples of complex applications of user-system interaction

Design Principles Themes or abstractions that help think about different aspects of design Based on theory-based knowledge, experience, and common sense

Visibility • make relevant parts visible …you need to insert your room card in the slot by the buttons to get the elevator to work! How would you make this action more visible? Make the card reader more obvious Provide an auditory message, that says what to do (which language?) Provide a big label next to the card reader that flashes when someone enters • make relevant parts visible • make what has to be done obvious

Invisible controls? Invisible controls make systems difficult to use

Providing Feedback for the user Sending information back to the user in response to his/her actions Sounds, highlighting etc More examples Web (links) Error messages “ccclichhk”

Developing a better design How to make the socket more visible? Affording feedback with visibility (some way of letting the user know that the cable has fit) Difficult to plug the monitor cable due to the location of the socket