Man-Machine Nightmares: Chaos buttons, human error and healthcare

Man-Machine Nightmares: Chaos buttons, human error and healthcare

This film promotes the important issue of user-friendly design. Playing with the concept of nightmares the audience is invited to imagine poor situations, mental lapses and poor interaction design. These situations can happen in any domain, but with a specific focus on healthcare we see that this can cause patient harm and fatalities in the worst cases. The film is educational in describing the latest views on human error, resilience behaviour and design; it refers to real world case studies; it is engaging by being encapsulated in a story about nightmares; and it has fun elements, including amusing human errors and 'microwave racing,' which illustrates the effect of bad design even on simple everyday products! The film plays to the old adage 'To err is human' but shows how user-friendly design can help reduce the risk of accidents in the workplace. This film is designed to be thought provoking -- to get the audience to think about the technology they use and to consider whether its design is good or bad. Our hope is that this will start debate so people consider the usability of technology when using it, investigating accidents and when making purchasing decisions.

This film was made as part of the CHI+MED project, funded by EPSRC grant EP/G059063/1. The project is looking into the usability of medical devices to improve patient safety.
For more info visit: http://www.chi-med.ac.uk/CHIMED/home.php?

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• HCI
• human error
• healthcare
• patient safety
• NPSA
• CHI+MED
• microwaves
• microwave racing
• human factors
• resilience
• usability
• user-friendly
• ergonomics
• chaos
• UCL
• UCLIC
• interaction
• infusion pump
• syringe driver
• interface
• error
• why buttons go bad
• buttons
• dominic
• furniss

[5m0keyj0e]

From a microwave racer: "Hai! So the airconditioning unit in my hotel in [place] had a 'chaos' button! Still not sure what it was for though, it didn't seem to do anything either...

[5m0keyj0e]

From the deviled egg: "Can u please speak to Kenwood and ask them to design a car radio that I can work. And the train ticket machines too while I'm at it. And flat pack furniture instructions. Or is it just me?"

[amywamie]

The Chaos Button! I have my own chaos button on my microwave...it features one of my vids ;)

[janwillem1982]

That chaos button is to interesting not to look into it further.

Apparently it's a special kind of defrost function; just google "chaos defrost microwave" (I'd post a link, but youtube is being retarded about it)