May 25

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

-- Alfred North Whitehead

 
 

Featured chapter

Read the fascinating history of Wearable Computing, told by its father, Steve Mann

Read Steve's chapter !

 
 

Help us help you!

 
 

Lorna Love

Add description
Add publication

Publications by Lorna Love (bibliography)

 what's this?
1997
 
Edit | Del

Love, Lorna and Johnson, Chris (1997): Using Diagrams to Support the Analysis of System 'Failure' and Operator 'Error'. In: Thimbleby, Harold, O'Conaill, Brid and Thomas, Peter J. (eds.) Proceedings of the Twelfth Conference of the British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Specialist Group - People and Computers XII August, 1997, Bristol, England, UK. pp. 245-261.

Computers are increasingly being embedded within safety systems. As a result, a number of accidents have been caused by complex interactions between operator 'error' and system 'failure'. Accident reports help to ensure that these 'failures' do not threaten other applications. Unfortunately, a number of usability problems limit the effectiveness of these documents. Each section is, typically, drafted by a different expert; forensic scientists follow metallurgists, human factors experts follow meteorologists. In consequence, it can be difficult for readers to form a coherent account of an accident. This paper argues that fault trees can be used to present a clear and concise overview of major failures. Unfortunately, fault trees have a number of limitations. For instance, they do not represent time. This is significant because temporal properties have a profound impact upon the course of human-computer interaction. Similarly, they do not represent the criticality or severity of a failure. We have, therefore, extended the fault tree notation to represent traces of interaction during major failures. The resulting Accident Fault Tree (AFT) diagrams can be used in conjunction with an official accident report to better visualise the course of an accident. The Clapham Junction railway disaster is used to illustrate our argument.

© All rights reserved Love and Johnson and/or Springer Verlag

 
Add publication
Show this list on your homepage
 
 

Join the technology elite and advance:

 
1.

Your career

 
2.

Your network

 
 3.

Your skills

 
 
 
 
 
 

Changes to this page (author)

17 Feb 2010: Modified
28 Apr 2003: Added

Page Information

Page maintainer: The Editorial Team
URL: http://www.interaction-design.org/references/authors/lorna_love.html
May 25

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

-- Alfred North Whitehead

 
 

Featured chapter

Read the fascinating history of Wearable Computing, told by its father, Steve Mann

Read Steve's chapter !

 
 

Help us help you!