Why bad technology dominates our lives, according to Don Norman

We have unwittingly accepted the paradigm that technology comes first, with people relegated to doing the actions that the machines cannot do, writes Don Norman. This requires people to act like machines, ever ready to take over when things go wrong.

As a result, we require people to do tedious, repetitive tasks, to be alert for long periods, ready to respond at a moment’s notice: all things people are bad at doing. When the inevitable errors and accidents occur, people are blamed for “human error”. The view is so prevalent that many times the people involved blame themselves, saying things like “knew better” or :should have paid more attention”, not recognizing that the demands of the technology made these errors inevitable.

Over 90% of industrial and automobile accidents are blamed on human error with distraction listed as a major cause. Can this be true? Look, if 5% of accidents were caused by human error, I would believe it. But when it is 90%, there must be some other reason, namely, that people are asked to do tasks that people should not be doing. Tasks that violate fundamental human abilities.