The Law of Unintended Consequences: The Case of External Subgoal Support

Abstract

Many interfaces have been designed to prevent or reduce errors. These interfaces may, in fact, reduce the error rate of specific error classes, but may also have unintended consequences. In this paper, we show a series of studies where a better interface did not reduce the number of errors but instead shifted errors from one error class \(omissions) to another error class (perseverations). We also show that having access to progress tracking (1a progress bar) does not reduce the number of errors. We propose and demonstrate a solution -- a predictive error system -- that reduces errors based on the error class, not on the type of interface.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2014
Accession Number
ADA618988

Entities

People

  • J. Gregory Trafton
  • Raj M. Ratwani

Organizations

  • United States Naval Research Laboratory

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