Recognising Erroneous and Exploratory Interactions

A better understanding of “human error” is needed to help overcome problems of people assuming they are to blame for their inability to use poorly designed technology. In order to investigate people's ability to recognize, and reflect on the causes of, particular types of errors, a problem solving environment was designed that allowed participants to verbally self-report erroneous and exploratory interactions. It was found that the pervasiveness of errors was recognizable but underlying cognitive and attentional causes of errors were not. Participants found that providing a causal account of device-specific errors during interaction was especially difficult. A striking feature of device-specific errors is that they involve actions that do not move an individual towards a goal state, but remain critical to performing a task correctly. Successfully identifying why an error has occurred requires an understanding of environmental cues and salience. Findings imply that HCI practitioners need to develop techniques to adjust the visual salience of cues, making it is possible to recognize and recover from error.