We shall understand accidents when we understand human nature"- Kay (Accidents: Some facts and theories, 1971.)
Human Factors is defined as "the application of scientific data to make the world compatible with human abilities, fitting the product to the sensory, information processing, and motor attributes of the user." It is a mix of psychology and engineering that arose 60 years ago in the aviation industry. Up until then, accidents were almost invariably attributed to mechanical fault or weather. Careful analyses began to show that human error caused most accidents. The discipline of human factors developed as the science of understanding and reducing human error and accidents. Human factors uses scientific knowledge of human capabilities, such perception and attention, memory and behavior, to understand how people interact with the world. This can mean interactions with buildings, computers, medical or other electronic devices, vehicles or other technology. Human factors helps design better environments and analyzes the source of error and accident in existing ones. It is widely applicable, since human error occurs at some point in most of our interactions with the world. Almost all human interactions with the world involve visual perception. Most everyday activities, driving, reading, watching TV, operating a computer or medical device, deciding which brand of soap to buy, etc., involve the human ability to see, to recognize and to decide whether two things appear the same or different, and then to make a decision and to respond. Understanding how this happens is often the key to analyzing human choice and behavior and to understanding accident and trademark confusion.
Many studies have shown the that human error is the most common accident cause:
In the first major study, "The Origin of Accidents" (1928), Herbert Heinrich examined 75,000 industrial accidents and attributed 88% to "unsafe human acts."
Former National Transportation Board Chair Jim Hill has testified before a congressional committee that human error causes 70% of accidents in all walks of life.
A Boeing study of major worldwide airline crashes found that 71.7% were due to human error.
Reason (Human Error, 1992), studied 180 nuclear power plants in 1983 and 1984 and concluded that human error was 52% of the root causes.
Rasmussen et. al. (New Technologies and Error, 1987) found that 88% of all occupational accidents are caused primarily by individual workers.
Wood et al. (CSERIAC, 1994) concluded that over 70% of operating room anesthetic incidents involve human error.
According to the most complete surveys, over 90% of all highway accidents are caused fully or in part by human error. And of these, 90% are caused by perceptual error and 10% by response error. In short, perception is a factor in over 80% of all highway accidents. Most of this error is due to perceptual and attentional failure or to inadequate highway visibility conditions. Moreover, visibility of warning labels, usability of computer/medical devices, legibility of instructions, placement of signs and warnings, recognition of people and objects, etc are all ultimately an issue in visual perception.
These percentages are amazingly large, but hide one important fact - that accidents attributed to human error are often really caused by a poorly designed system, product or environment. The role of the human factors expert is to determine the contributions of the individual and the circumstances.
Many people have heard the term "human factors" but are unsure what it means. Visual Expert offers online articles which provide a general overview of perception and human factors. They should be useful in gaining understanding of how human factors people think and analyze the huge number of accidents which involve human behavior. Visual Expert also provides seminars on most of these topics.
About the Author: Dr. Marc Green is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and has an experimental psychology Ph. D. and 31 years of experience in basic and applied research in human vision (contrast, brightness, color, speed, and distance) and human factors, attention and conspicuity, response and reaction time, and cognition. He has written 82 articles, abstracts, and book chapters, including the chapter on visibility and conspicuity for the upcoming Handbook of Forensic Human Factors. Dr. Green has consulted on matters related to the perception, conspicuity, and reaction time in pedestrian, road and rail accidents, impact of visual conditions on slips and falls, effects of aging on human performance and safety, design of man-machine interactions, and to trademark and trade dress confusion measurement and design functionality, especially in the realm of color.
Many studies have shown the that human error is the most common accident cause:
In the first major study, "The Origin of Accidents" (1928), Herbert Heinrich examined 75,000 industrial accidents and attributed 88% to "unsafe human acts."
Former National Transportation Board Chair Jim Hill has testified before a congressional committee that human error causes 70% of accidents in all walks of life.
A Boeing study of major worldwide airline crashes found that 71.7% were due to human error.
Reason (Human Error, 1992), studied 180 nuclear power plants in 1983 and 1984 and concluded that human error was 52% of the root causes.
Rasmussen et. al. (New Technologies and Error, 1987) found that 88% of all occupational accidents are caused primarily by individual workers.
Wood et al. (CSERIAC, 1994) concluded that over 70% of operating room anesthetic incidents involve human error.
According to the most complete surveys, over 90% of all highway accidents are caused fully or in part by human error. And of these, 90% are caused by perceptual error and 10% by response error. In short, perception is a factor in over 80% of all highway accidents. Most of this error is due to perceptual and attentional failure or to inadequate highway visibility conditions. Moreover, visibility of warning labels, usability of computer/medical devices, legibility of instructions, placement of signs and warnings, recognition of people and objects, etc are all ultimately an issue in visual perception.
These percentages are amazingly large, but hide one important fact - that accidents attributed to human error are often really caused by a poorly designed system, product or environment. The role of the human factors expert is to determine the contributions of the individual and the circumstances.
Many people have heard the term "human factors" but are unsure what it means. Visual Expert offers online articles which provide a general overview of perception and human factors. They should be useful in gaining understanding of how human factors people think and analyze the huge number of accidents which involve human behavior. Visual Expert also provides seminars on most of these topics.
About the Author: Dr. Marc Green is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and has an experimental psychology Ph. D. and 31 years of experience in basic and applied research in human vision (contrast, brightness, color, speed, and distance) and human factors, attention and conspicuity, response and reaction time, and cognition. He has written 82 articles, abstracts, and book chapters, including the chapter on visibility and conspicuity for the upcoming Handbook of Forensic Human Factors. Dr. Green has consulted on matters related to the perception, conspicuity, and reaction time in pedestrian, road and rail accidents, impact of visual conditions on slips and falls, effects of aging on human performance and safety, design of man-machine interactions, and to trademark and trade dress confusion measurement and design functionality, especially in the realm of color.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment