| Abstract: | Increased dependence on computers in safety critical industries means increased dependence on a smaller number of people—both the users of computer systems, and those responsible for their design and production. Reliability and integrity of such systems can be enhanced without large overall increases in costs by looking critically at the human-computer interaction early in the design phase. In this paper, a selection of human factors principles are applied to safety critical system design. This includes making systems easier to learn to use, reducing alarm overload, matching the design of menus to the task, consistency and modality. |
