April 2011

Radiation: The Difficulty of Monitoring the Invisible – Post 2 of 2

April 27, 2011
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This post continues the list of articles on HF-related errors in radiation delivering healthcare devices. As Technology Surges, Radiation Safeguards Lag But the technology introduces its own risks: it has created new avenues for error in software and operation, and those mistakes can be more difficult to detect. As a result, a single error that becomes embedded in a treatment plan can [...]

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Radiation: The Difficulty of Monitoring the Invisible – Post 1 of 2

April 22, 2011
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Lately, I have noticed a plethora of stories on human factors mistakes with medical equipment that delivers radiation. I have collected them here for those who are interested in this problem. At times a computer bug was at fault, but often radiation overdoses came from: inadequate training (and perhaps a poor display, but those are not available for me to examine) non-transferrable mental [...]

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Driven to Distraction

April 19, 2011
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This editorial from MSN Autos nicely summarizes a topic we’ve covered many times:  in-car technology interfering with driving.  The central problem appears to be that in-car interfaces are designed in isolation–devoid of the context in which they will actually be used (while driving).  So the designs demand a high amount of attention and concentration. Expert on human-automation interaction Dr. John D. [...]

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Website Usability Success Story – Bethel University

April 18, 2011
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The Chronicle of Higher Education has posted a great “interactive graphic” about Bethel’s re-design of their admissions page. It includes their metrics of success, an important but often difficult to quantify validation of usability. Special problems they faced: A large number of specialized programs with different application methods Including financial aid information appropriately and early in the process Managing multiple [...]

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Crowdsourced Usability III: Skype

April 1, 2011

The new Skype client for Mac has received some very loud complaints about the redesign mostly centered on usability.  Skype has heard the cries: We want you to create the chat style for an upcoming version of Skype for Mac that will be enjoyed by millions of people around the world. We’ve put a template together containing everything that you’ll [...]

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