Applying hierarchical task analysis to medication administration errors

Medication use in hospitals is a complex process and is dependent on the successful interaction of health professionals functioning within different disciplines. Errors can occur at any one of the five main stages of prescribing, documenting, dispensing or preparation, administering and monitoring. The responsibility for the error is often placed on the nurse, as she or he is the last person in the drug administration chain whilst more pressing underlying causal factors remain unresolved. This paper demonstrates how hierarchical task analysis can be used to model drug administration and then uses the systematic human error reduction and prediction approach to predict which errors are likely to occur. The paper also puts forward design solutions to mitigate these errors

Design for sustainable behaviour: Investigating design methods for influencing user behaviour

This research aims to develop a design tool for product and service innovation which influences users towards more sustainable behaviour, reducing resource use and leading to a lower carbon footprint for everyday activities. The paper briefly explains the reasoning behind the tool and its structure, and presents an example application to water conservation with concept ideas generated by design students

Concept generation for persuasive design

Designing ‘persuasive’ products and services for social benefit often involves adopting and adapting principles and patterns from other disciplines and contexts where behaviour change is a goal. This poster briefly reports on a series of controlled trials of an idea generation toolkit which aims to make this transposition of patterns easier, with designers and students applying the toolkit to four ‘design for sustainable behaviour’ briefs to generate new concepts for influencing user behaviour. While only a small sample, results show that using the toolkit does lead to an increase in the number of concepts generated for a majority of participants, compared with the control condition

Modelling the User: How design for sustainable behaviour can reveal different stakeholder perspectives on human nature

Copyright @ 2010 TU DelftInfluencing more environmentally friendly and sustainable behaviour is a current focus of many projects, ranging from government social marketing campaigns, education and tax structures to designers’ work on interactive products, services and environments. There is a wide variety of techniques and methods used—we have identified over 100 design patterns in our Design with Intent toolkit—each intended to work via a particular set of cognitive and environmental principles. These approaches make different assumptions about ‘what people are like’: how users will respond to behavioural interventions, and why, and in the process reveal some of the assumptions that designers and other stakeholders, such as clients commissioning a project, make about human nature. In this paper, we discuss three simple models of user behaviour—the Pinball, the Shortcut and the Thoughtful—which emerge from user experience designers’ statements about users while focused on designing for behaviour change. We characterise these models using systems terminology and examine the application of each model to design for sustainable behaviour via a series of examples

Choice architecture and design with intent

Motivation – Choice architecture (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008) is a phrase of the moment among politicians and economists seeking to influence public behaviour, but the relevance of the concept to designers has received little attention. This paper places choice architecture within the context of Design with Intent—design intended to influence user behaviour. Research approach – The concepts are introduced and choice architecture is deconstructed. Findings/Design – Affordances and Simon’s behavioural model (1955) help understand choice architecture in more detail. Research limitations/Implications – This is only a very brief, limited foray into what choice architecture is. Originality/Value – User behaviour can be a major determinant of product efficiency: user decisions can contribute significantly to environmental impacts. Understanding the reasons behind them, a range of design techniques can be identified to help users towards more efficient interactions. Take away message – The intended outcome is a useful design method for helping users use things more efficiently

Influencing interaction: Development of the design with intent method

Persuasive Technology has the potential to influence user behavior for social benefit, e.g. to reduce environmental impact, but designers are lacking guidance choosing among design techniques for influencing interaction. The Design with Intent Method, a ‘suggestion tool’ addressing this problem, is introduced in this paper, and applied to the briefs of reducing unnecessary household lighting use, and improving the efficiency of printing, primarily to evaluate the method’s usability and guide the direction of its development. The trial demonstrates that the DwI Method is quick to apply and leads to a range of relevant design concepts. With development, the DwI Method could be a useful tool for designers working on influencing user behavior

A proposed psychological model of driving automation

This paper considers psychological variables pertinent to driver automation. It is anticipated that driving with automated systems is likely to have a major impact on the drivers and a multiplicity of factors needs to be taken into account. A systems analysis of the driver, vehicle and automation served as the basis for eliciting psychological factors. The main variables to be considered were: feed-back, locus of control, mental workload, driver stress, situational awareness and mental representations. It is expected that anticipating the effects on the driver brought about by vehicle automation could lead to improved design strategies. Based on research evidence in the literature, the psychological factors were assembled into a model for further investigation

Augmented paper applications: Initial user tests of a wireless pattern reader

A handheld pattern reader has been developed to read low visibility conductive patterns on paper. The patterns are formed by masking conductive paper with a non-conductive, printed lacquer. The reader was developed as part of an EU-funded project investigating methods of augmenting paper. Data read from the patterns was used to trigger events in the digital domain. Usability tests were undertaken to investigate the performance of the prototype. Results showed that at this stage of development there was significant variation in performance of the prototype from user to user. Further work is being undertaken to determine the causes of this variability

Design with Intent: 101 patterns for influencing behaviour through design

Copyright @ 2010 EquifineThe Architectural Lens draws on techniques used to influence user behaviour in architecture, urban planning and related disciplines such as traffic management and crime prevention through environmental design (see also the Security Lens). While most of the techniques have been developed in the built environment, many of the ideas can also be applied in interaction and product design, even in software or services; they are effectively about using the 'structure of systems' to influence behaviour. Some of the patterns, such as Simplicity, Feature deletion and Hiding things are really fundamental to all kinds of design