We don't live in a perfect world and although in many cases the knowledge
is available to design things properly these design principles are broken
more often than they are adhered to.
In any case, many instances of poor design are *not* fixable without
prohibitive expense and unafordable down time. Sometimes bad design is
something you discover almost by accident (unfortunately) because the area
the designer is working in is uncharted territory. Good design is the
outcome of much expensive research and experimentation, as well as a bit of
luck. At other times the design faults are justified on "economic" grounds
because it's too expensive or too slow to get it right the first time or to
re-design. Whatever the reason, many instances of bad design are all around
us and ordinary working people have to live and work in such situations as
best they can. If a simple training method can help them deal with this
problem a little better and perhaps make their life a little less
frustrating and even somewhat safer, then I believe that it's worth giving
it a go.
The purpose of my ALCOA example is clear only when you *don't* remove it
from its context, i.e., it serves to point out that you can even overcome
bad design by changing the human controller's behaviour to facilitate
transitions from one control situation to another, using a specific
training/learning methodolology.
Paul
--At 08:31 AM 10/19/98 U, you wrote: > > RE>>Naturalistic Decision Making 19/10/98 > ><snip> >The ALCOA factory where we did the Old Way/New Way trial, as described on >the web site, had two large overhead cranes in the casting pit building. >These cranes run on rails that go from one end of this huge bulding to the >other and they carry the crucibles of molten aluminium. The control panels >inside each crane were identical in appearance but not in function. In one >crane the top left button turned the crane to the right; in the other crane >the same button turned that crane to the left. Crane operators, when >transitioning from one crane to the other, would experience interference >from their prior learning (the other crane) and this resulted in several >collisions between cranes. The company was unable to cure the problem with >re-training so they ripped out both control panels, installed panels >identical in appearance AND function and then re-trained all the crane >operators to use this new control panel, all at considerable time and >expense. Old Way/New Way would have fixed this problem by using control >panels that were coloured differently and then re-programming operators >with specific set of control behaviours for each panel/colour, enabling >them to transition readily from one to the other, and back again. The >panel's colour would serve as a cue for the "correct" set of control >responses for that panel. ><snip> > >I do not believe that training should be a crutch for bad design as has been >identified in this case. Replacing the panels is the correct solution, in >this case. Anything else is second best.
Paul Baxter Ph.D. M.A. Dip.T. MAPS The Habit Shop: A performance enhancement consultancy 25 Coolaroo Crescent Jindalee Australia 4074 Ph. +61-(0)500-579-257. Fax +61-(0)7-3376-1576. Mobile +61-(0)418-784-951 E-mail: pbaxter_at_personalbest.com.au http://www.personalbest.com.au/~pbaxter/training.htm