Professor Harold Thimbleby from the Department of Computer Science at Swansea University has had his research published in the new Journal of the Royal Society, Interface. It was considered the top publising news item in this month’s Royal Society online news.
Professor Thimbleby is the founder of the Future Interaction Technology Laboratory, FIT Lab, at Swansea University which specialises in improving the quality of future interactive devices.
Professor Thimbleby’s paper reports on his research into human errors in a wide variety of commonly used systems from office applications (like Excel) to medical devices (like drug delivery systems).
The paper is novel in its investigation into the processing of number entry. In particular, it looks at several examples of drug delivery systems which are designed to be operated by a nurse or doctor, where errors can be life-threatening.
In the paper, Professor Thimbleby shows that systems should have greater error detection to prevent keying slips resulting in serious problems. The paper proposes a new approach so that these systems detect errors by identifying invalid numbers, and shows that doing so could halve serious errors.
With action from manufacturers, the findings will help reduce human error in drug delivery systems in healthcare trusts across the world.
Professor Thimbleby said: “We know two things. Humans make errors, and we rely on computers. This can lead to disaster, as computers are very bad at coping with error, often behaving unpredictably. This research is exciting because a simple way of handling data entry is developed that blocks the consequences of many errors. If it is taken up by industry, lives will be saved.”
