Designing for Human error (was re: unsubscring)

Subject: Designing for Human error (was re: unsubscring)
From: Gary Beason <bubba -at- EXPERT -dot- CC -dot- PURDUE -dot- EDU>
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 15:39:22 EST

Eric's reply is a good example, I think, of how we work. As he noted,
he thought he was in a different mailer.

I think some of the folks who try to unsub through the list itself may
have similar reasons.

In Don Norman's _the Psychology of Everyday Things_, while it
encourages to build/design (even write) for human tendencies, he still
seems to have the attitude we have to accoundt for human *error*--as
if there's a mode of *correct* human behavior. Ideal--maybe. But is
that human?

People will not always follow the ideal track of action, but is that
an *error*?

Reminds me of Grudin's article in the recent _Comm of the ACM_ in which
he points out that computer terminology (e.g., end-user, user, novice)
is engineer centered and wrongly, uh, discredits the knowledge that a
person *does* have.

Perhaps this is a difference of attitude only.



--Gary Beason
---Purdue University
----bubba -at- mace -dot- cc -dot- purdue -dot- edu


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