Designing for electrical safety that can withstand legal scrutiny

When considering the issue of electrical safety in product and system design, it is critical to use a well defined design process that complies with the legal standards. Engineers need not be lawyers but they do need to understand how the law views the process of engineering design. For any product or system that brings electrical energy into close proximity with human users, the risk of electrical injury must always be deemed as foreseeable. Design considerations must be constructed upon knowledge of foreseeable risks from intended as well as unintended uses of the product or system. To comport with legal standards, foreseeable modes of failure must be identified and dealt with before the product or system ever sees the marketplace. Negligence in design attaches when the design process fails such that the designer's duty to follow the appropriate and proper design procedure has been breached.