Designing Interaractive Systems: Key Issues for a Holistic Approach

In the age of modern society, systems are growing in complexity where technology and other hardware equipment, pre-defined procedures and practices as well as human operators are integrated. Safety concerns and economic pressure urge for increasing the degree of automation for such systems. But essential parts that can and should not be mapped to technology exist. Especially in emergency situations (e.g. degradiation of technical and physical devices or environmental disturbances) and complex decision making, human actors are the main carriers of knowledge and hence have the major responsibility to achieve the process goals. However, they are only able to do so in the case where many influencing technical, organisational, cultural and social factors fit to the people's cognitive needs.

We investigate the specific role of the different system resources and their strong interdependencies within complex working settings. Thereby, interaction among the system components turns out to be very crucial. In addition to studies on accidents and near misses, the insights from a train traffic control case study and a project with the Italian National Railways (FS, Ferrovie dello stato) stress that the overall system goals can only be achieved by a close co-operation and smooth interaction among the system components. This urges for a broader perspective on complex interactive systems which have to be integrated in a holistic design approach.