Human factors in the high-risk systems

The author examines whether the present pace of change of human factors research and its direction are adequate to cope with the problems of high-tech, high-risk systems. Emphasis is placed on whether the priority of this research has been properly defined. It is concluded that, in the present period of rapidly changing technology and concurrent increasing size of systems, a number of very important human factor problems are related to the overall structure of sociotechnical systems, to basic methodological problems in design and generation, and to communication among the professions involved. It is further concluded that to solve these problems, methods will be required which depend on an integrated systems approach rather than decomposition and quantification. In addition, focus should be on design and management issues rather than on operational interface problems.<>