Behind Human Error

by David D. Woods

Human error is so often cited as a cause of accidents. There is perception of a 'human error problem'. Solutions are thought to lie in changing the people or their role. The label "human error", however, is prejudicial and hides more than it reveals about how a system malfunctions. This book takes you behind the label. It explains how human error results from social and psychological judgments by the system's stakeholders that focus only on one facet of a set of interacting contributors.

Genres: Software, Psychology, Nonfiction, Design, Business, Engineering

294 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 1994

Reviews

[Anusha Datar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven’t learned much about human factors, but as someone who works on devices and the software that runs on them I often consider how I should be thinking about the people who use what I make and what outcomes their interactions might lead to. I thought this book’s reframing of “human error” as a mere attribution was really powerful, and I enjoyed the book’s logical organization and powerful examples. Even though the examples were generally more life and death than anything I ever deal with, I can still appreciate the applications to my work and life.

That being said, the book was pretty dense and I don’t think I’d recommend the whole thing to anyone unless they really liked very specific examples, so I’m giving it four stars.

[Ronald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of it already well known to the HF community but I still find tidbits of new info here and there. This book is mainly written to the practitioners outside of HF community. The message is important, although the barriers to overcome is overwhelming.

[Matt Lavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ideas in the book are very interesting, and the content is clearly well researched, but the writing style is very dense. This is not the most approachable book about the topic, but if you stay with it you will learn quite a lot about how failures and safety in complex systems.

[Emmalittle100 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must for all 'so-called' human factors experts. Clear succinct and communicated with such ease it makes you wonder why everyone doesn't just think this way in the first place!