A long-term program is in progress at JPL to reduce cost and risk of flight mission operations through a defect/error prevention program. The goal of this program is the reduction and ultimately the prevention of human errors. The main thrust of this program is to create an environment in which the performance of both the human operator and the computer system is optimized. Systems must be designed to enhance normal human performance; training programs must be designed to alleviate likely errors; and functions that are human-error prone should be automated. To successfully design and implement this program requires a theoretically motivated model of human problem solving and decision making based on current theories of human cognition. Further, such a model must be data-validated to ensure its ultimate applicability. Principles of cognitive psychology, human-computer interaction, and Total Quality Management (TQM) are used to analyze past errors and make changes to end-user applications and training requirements to prevent these errors in the future.
['Kristin J. Bruno', 'Linda L. Welz', 'Josef S. Sherif']
Developing an error prevention methodology based on cognitive error models