Ergonomics of dependable and of safety critical systems

Abstract

System failures are in some applications (e.g., banking) difficult to accept and have resulted in the development of highly dependable systems. A special class of these systems regards the safety critical systems, whose operation involves risks for the health or the life of humans (e.g., air traffic control systems). This workshop considers the design of the user interfaces of such systems. Some of these user interfaces must enable coping with cognitively demanding situations. The workshop will, in addition, consider the process of designing these systems. The possibly most difficult part of the design regards the attempt to identify all the possible critical cases. This may require the participation of different kinds of experts and employing methods designed for uncovering difficult-to-detect critical cases. The design of dependable systems may thus involve a most demanding kind of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW).