On the design of man-machine systems Principles, practices and prospects

Abstract A large proportion of the problems associated with complex systems have been attributed, at least in part, to the human operators, maintenance personnel, or managers who work within these systems. It appears, therefore, that improving man-machine system design may contribute to decreasing substantially the frequency of problems in complex systems. In this paper, we describe and contrast alternative views of how the design of man-machine systems might be improved. We then propose a two-part approach for achieving the desired improvements. The first part involves a reorientation of conceptual design, and the second part involves supporting current practices within detailed design and integration. The viability of our proposed approach is substantiated by the results of extensive interviews of a large number of designers in several industrial organizations.

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