We design equipment that requires people to be fully alert and attentive for hours, or to remember archaic, confusing procedures even if they are only used infrequently, sometimes only once in a lifetime. We put people in boring environments with nothing to do for hours on end, until suddenly they must respond quickly and accurately. Or we subject them to complex, high-workload environments, where they are continually interrupted while having to do multiple tasks simultaneously. Then we wonder why there is failure.
