Avoiding Error

Procedural Error and Individual Cognition

Procedural errors have often been refered to as being skill-based errors. Despite knowing how to do the task, a slip can still occur. While slips can have significant consequences in safety-critical situations, they occur widely; everyday slips are easy to identify. For example, forgetting to attach a document to an email or omitting to select the correct window in a graphical computer interface, before typing or otherwise interacting with it. Laboratory research has demonstrated that slip errors are not stochastic but have known causes. The focus of my experimental work is to explore how interface design can facilitate the avoidance of procedural error, expanding our understanding of factors that could be used in a predictive account. Moreover, it is important to increase the bounds of what a theoretical account needs to cover by revealing mechanisms underlying interactive behaviour.

A preliminary analysis of NHS risk registers and accident case studies has revealed three generic problems that manifest themselves across a wide range of medical devices. These are: coping with interruptions; improving task structure mappings; and understanding the positive and negative effects of device timeouts. These issues will be the focus of my future work.

Refs

1. Back, J., Cheng, W, Dann, R., Curzon, P., & Blandford, A. (2006). Does being motivated to avoid procedural errors influence their systematicity? People and Computers XX - Engage Proceedings of HCI 2006 (Vol. 1). Abstract (HTML), Pre-print (PDF)

2. Back, J., Blandford, A., & Curzon, P. (2007). Recognising Erroneous and Exploratory Interactions. In C. Baranauskas, P. Palanque, J. Abascal and S. Barbosa (Eds.) INTERACT 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4663. 127-140. Abstract (HTML), Pre-print (PDF)

3. Back, J., Blandford, A., & Curzon, P., (2007). Slip Errors and Cue Salience. In W.-P. Brinkman, D.-H. Ham & B. L. W. Wong (Eds.) Proceedings of ECCE2007. Invent! Explore! European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics 2007 (EACE), August. Abstract (HTML), Pre-print (PDF)