Deconstructs the conventional concept of 'human error' and provides a fresh way of looking at accidents and how they might be prevented. This work shows how, by concentrating solely on 'human error', systems and sociological factors are frequently ignored in contemporary safety science.
The majority of accidents and incidents are caused, at some level, by human error. This text provides an introduction to this key field as well as a broad background to the subject. Incorporating the sociology of disaster and accidents into a practical framework, it offers a new paradigm for the subject. The authors address the roots of "human error" in the Western tradition and discuss the history of human error studies, human factors, and ergonomics, exploring hidden assumptions that have colored past research. They include current methodologies of experimental design, new paradigms, and outlines situated and distributed cognition models, and more useful intervention strategies.
