“Warning: Do Not Use While Sleeping” - The Role of Facilitators

American human factors engineer Lila Laux looks at the role of facilitators, ie. factors such as labels, warnings, and instructions, which are not part of the operation of a system but are intended to help with its use. After summarising the previous work on the subject, the article comments on the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ergonomics in design 2005-10, Vol.13 (4), p.5-29
Main Authors: Peacock, Brian, Laux, Lila
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:American human factors engineer Lila Laux looks at the role of facilitators, ie. factors such as labels, warnings, and instructions, which are not part of the operation of a system but are intended to help with its use. After summarising the previous work on the subject, the article comments on the following types of facilitator: labels; warnings; instructions; procedures; checklists; tutorials; augmented reality. Laux then goes on to analyse the human factors approach to facilitators, discusses current practices, and their shortcomings, and makes recommendations about facilitator design. The article concludes that ideally, systems should be designed for effective and safe use without facilitators, and should include safeguards so that misuse does no harm. It acknowledges, however, that in practice, facilitators are always going to be necessary, and recommends that facilitators be formally integrated into the system design and evaluation processes.
ISSN:1064-8046
2169-5083
DOI:10.1177/106480460501300403