Avoiding latent design conditions using UI discovery tools

Motivation – Designers make decisions that later influence how users work with the systems that they have designed. When errors occur in use, it is tempting to focus on the active errors rather than on the latent design decisions that framed the context of error, and fixing latent conditions can have a more general (and future) impact than addressing particular active failures. Research approach – A constructive computer science approach is used, and results from a simulation reported. Research limitations – Error is a complex multidisciplinary field; this paper makes a new contribution complimentary to human factors engineering. Take away message – This paper shows that latent design decisions cause serious problems (including fatalities) in safety critical applications; the paper proposes UI discovery tools to identify and manage latent errors. UI discovery enables human factors engineers and programmers to work together to help eliminate broad classes of latent design errors