The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way People Live with Technology

by Kim J. Vicente

What links the frustrations of daily life, like VCR clocks and voicemail systems, to airplane crashes and a staggering “hidden epidemic” of medical error?Kim Vicente is a professor of human factors engineering at the University of Toronto and a consultant to NASA, Microsoft, Nortel Networks and many other organizations; he might also be described as a “technological anthropologist.” He spends his time in emergency rooms, airplane cockpits and nuclear power station control rooms -- as well as in kitchens, garages and bathrooms -- observing how people interact with technology.In the first chapter of The Human Factor , Kim Vicente sets out the disturbing pattern he’s from daily life to life-or-death situations, people are using technology that doesn’t take the human factor into account. Technologies as diverse as stove tops, hospital work schedules and airline cockpit controls lead to ‘human error’ because they neglect what people are like physically, psychologically, and in more complex ways. The results range from inconvenience to tragic loss of life.How has this situation come about? The root cause of the problem, Vicente explains in the second chapter, is a “two cultures” issue. There is a divide in the world of technological design -- just as there is in the world more generally -- between humanistic and mechanistic world-views. The humanistic view (in, say, cognitive psychology) deals with people in the abstract, ignoring that using tools is an integral human activity. The mechanistic view, on the other hand, forgets that it is real people who have to use the tools engineers develop. The two groups aren’t talking to each as the author puts it, “our traditional ways of thinking have ignored -- and virtually made invisible -- the relationship between people and technology.”As is often the case in human factors engineering, the solution is both revolutionary and, on the surface, what we have to do is focus on the relationship between people and technology. Taking a cue from systems thinking, Kim Vicente argues that we should focus not just on better products or better practices, but the fit between them. What this means is not the development of more high-tech or low-tech articles, but a Human-tech revolution, where the human comes before the technological but the two are always linked.In some areas the revolution is already at it’s not always the case that technology doesn’t take the human factor into account. When it does, as in the case of the Reach toothbrush, the Palm Pilot, or the “critical incident” reporting method developed at the Philadelphia Children’s hospital, the technology is a success. The Fender stratocaster guitar became the favourite of musicians around the globe because it was designed with the needs of guitarists in mind, in everything from its overall shape to the position of its controls. The Human-tech Aviation Safety Reporting System, a way for pilots to confidentially report near-misses, has made air travel dramatically safer.Technology as Kim Vicente understands it isn’t just the physical “stuff” we use. In The Human Factor the word is used in a much broader sense, to include the physical and non-physical elements of complex systems. Information, teamwork, organizational structures and political decisions play a crucial role in determining how well a technological system as a whole functions. The “Human-tech ladder” sets this out in more detail, and also provides the structure for the rest of the book. Design should begin by understanding a human or societal need, and then tailoring the technology to reflect what we know about human nature at the physical, psychological, team, organizational and political levels.Kim Vicente offers a host of examples of technology relating to human needs poorly and well at each level. The physical is perhaps easiest to a toothbrush that fits into hard to reach parts of the human mouth is better tailored to the human body than one that cannot. At the psychological level, technology has to take into account how people process and remember information, whether in designing voicemail systems or airport baggage checks. Poor Human-tech can be devastating. For example, awkwardly placed and uninformative gauges in the design of the control room at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station left even highly trained engineers uncertain as to the status of the reactor, contributing to the infamous accident there.At the team level, the Cockpit Resource Management system is a way of training pilots to communicate and share responsibilities effectively. The way people work together is itself a form of technology that needs to run smoothly to avoid disastrous accidents, such as the time an Eastern Airlines jet crashed in Florida because the entire crew was distracted by the condition of an unimportant light bulb and no-one attended to flying the plane.Kim Vicente discusses the human factor at the organizational level in chapter seven of The Human Factor . “So...

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Business, Psychology, Technology, Engineering, Textbooks

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Dora Rodriguez]

The Human Factor cambió la forma en la que veo el error humano.

Kim Vicente propone una idea tan simple como poderosa: la mayoría de los errores no ocurren porque las personas sean incompetentes, sino porque los sistemas en los que trabajan las empujan a equivocarse. A través de ejemplos de la aviación, la medicina, la energía y otras industrias, demuestra que culpar al “último eslabón” rara vez resuelve el problema.

Lo que más me gustó es que no es un libro únicamente para ingenieros o especialistas en seguridad. También interpela a docentes, líderes y a cualquiera que trabaje con personas. Me hizo replantearme cómo enseñamos, cómo diseñamos procesos y cómo reaccionamos cuando alguien comete un error.

Es un libro accesible, lleno de casos reales y con un mensaje que sigue siendo muy vigente: si queremos mejores resultados, no alcanza con pedir mejores personas; tenemos que construir mejores sistemas.

Una lectura altamente recomendable para quienes disfrutan de los factores humanos, la aviación, el diseño centrado en las personas o simplemente quieren entender por qué los errores ocurren y cómo prevenirlos.

[Sergio]

It really gets to the basics (and basis) of human-centered design

[Peter]

Vincente's premise that really there is no such thing as human error only human behaviour is a refreshing way to think of problems across systems, urban planning, user interface and user experiences. His insightful examples range from airplanes to nuclear power plants. Yet, his last example about a water processing plant mishap that led to death and many illnesses doesn't entirely sell the philosophy. He makes the case that presumptions and actions from provincial to municipal government agencies to the facility level combined to create the tragedy of a poisoned water source but like a mini-Chernobyl, not even a clever system of design could stop a couple of idiots being idiots.

This is a well written introduction to the ideas of usability full of illustrative and instructive examples.

[David Farrell]

I really enjoyed this book - especially the focus on how tech interacts with different levels of organizational design and horizontal / vertical processes and the importance to adopting an overall system / project perspective.

[Jaskaran Singh]

This book was recommended by one Professor friend and it worth all the time I spent reading it. Human-tech is the term that is coined by Prof Kim Vicente. Books like this should be required reading in the first year of engineering. One particular thing that I liked about Kim is his emphasis on environment for designing products. The last chapter is the best one which summarises the book ideas well and has advice on how we can look at technology.
I am rating it 5 stars because I never lost interest in the book and it always kept me in the flow state. This book does not get boring or repetitive at any point.

[Theresa Liao]

I like where the book was taking us at the very beginning, but in the end it felt too idealistic. Unfortunately human-tech is not the only thing we need to consider when making decisions - what if the company that produces human-tech products also generate terrible pollutions? Or, that the country will need to sacrifice money needed for health care in order the purchase slightly more expensive human-tech products? I think this books has a point, but don't think it breaks out of its box to suggest creative solutions. Great idea, but not sure if it really goes anywhere.

[Nathanael Coyne]

Really enjoyed The Human Factor. Well written, engaging, lots of interesting case studies, evidence and frameworks for approaching human-tech design at different levels from physical interfaces and people up to the political domain of policy and regulation and the cascading effect of system design decisions.

[Patriciapayton]

This was a very interesting read about how engineering often ignores the human interaction with technology. It provides vivid examples where human computer interaction has caused death such as nuclear power plant accidents, drugs administered incorrectly, airplane accidents, and ecoli in a local water supply. It also proposes solutions to these issues.

[Hannah Odia]

Was I forced to read this for class? Yes. But it was dense and interesting and im still counting it.

[Celeste Thayer]

This was a good book - lots of examples. I enjoyed it right up to the last chapter, where it got a bit pushy about the Human-tech revolution, and I just skipped that chapter. I'd read it again (still skipping the last chapter, though.)

[Damien Leri]

Good stories of critical systems, how humans can still make mistakes and how technology can help.

[Cameron Norman]

Some good anecdotes and stories. I liked it, just something didn't draw me in as I would have thought.

[Bernie May]

Human error or design error? How design affects our lives, and how we blame ourselves for designing bad systems. Read this, then read "The Checklist Manifesto"

[Yana Mtl]

great book.