The Application of User Modeling Techniques to Reason about the Human Contribution to Major Accidents

Accident reports are important documents for the development of many interactive systems. They are a primary mechanism by which designers and regulators learn about human ‘error’ and systems ‘failure’. These documents do, however, suffer from a number of limitations. In particular, it can be difficult for readers to trace the ways in which particular individuals are influenced by, and in turn help to influence, their colleagues’ behavior. This paper argues that user modeling techniques can help to improve our understanding of operator interaction in the lead-up to accidents and incidents. This argument is illustrated by a “near miss” that occurred when two Air Traffic Controllers failed to coordinate the arrival and departure of aircraft at Heathrow Airport on the 27 August 1997.