The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way We Live with Technology [Paperback]

Kim Vicente is probably the only person who can make the connection between a perpetually blinking VCR clock and the nearly 100,000 preventable deaths per year in the U.S. due to medical error. But he does it convincingly and entertainingly in The Human Factor by outlining the many ways technology is failing us, and then providing a framework to fix the problem. From early airplane cockpit designs that caused unnecessary pilot error and even deaths to a BMW dashboard system that was supposed to simplify driving by offering seven or eight hundred features, Vicente makes a strong case for a new approach to creating high and low-tech devices. "Our traditional ways of thinking have ignored--and virtually made invisible--the relationship between people and technology," he writes. "But until a new and better way of thinking crystallizes and takes hold, we'll keep on resorting to familiar but outdated ideas because they used to work and they're all we have in our conceptual tool box." Vicente offers his "Human-tech Revolution" manifesto as our new toolbox--a framework for developing technologies that work for people, not just engineers. It's an approach that takes into account our social, economic, and political realities and could possibly even ensure your VCR clock will never blink again. An educational and accessible read for high and low-tech enthusiasts. --Craig Silverman --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

“[Kim Vicente] calls for a revolution in thinking.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“Refreshingly, The Human Factor is not a techonophile’s rant. [Vicente] takes a considered look at how we can turn around our sometimes frustrating dealings with machines and bureaucracies and use them instead of them using us. And, even more importantly, how we can make all of this safer. Vicente underlines his premise with extraordinary statistics. … [H]e simplifies complex ideas and presents them along with simple diagrams.”
—Christopher Dewdney (poet, author of The Natural History), The Globe and Mail

“Vicente has a wonderful ability to find the perfect example to illustrate each of [the book’s] principles. … Each chapter of this amazing book has its own strenths. … This is no ordinary book; it is a joy to read, instructuve and provocative. Vicente has been hailed as one of the 25 Canadians under 40 who will reshape Canada. Having read The Human Factor, I find that easy to believe.”
—The Edmonton Journal

“By turns enchanting and disturbing, Vicente’s marvellous book is full of advice on how to make this a more elegant, as well as a safer, world.”
—Maclean’s

Advance Praise:
“What form of social change could save lives, boost the economy, and increase health and happiness, all without political wrangling or moralistic finger-pointing? The answer: making our technology work better with human minds and bodies. This delightful and important book explains how we can at last reap the fruits of the recent revolution in technology. It should be required reading for all engineers.” -- Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Blank Slate and How the Mind Works

“This book may well be a landmark in changing our view of technology, and its place in our world. Kim Vicente is a visionary. He understands the value of using technology to help people, rather than technology for the sake of technology. He places human needs and values first. The world today badly needs such people.” -- Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dreams

“Kim Vicente is an engineer who understands how all our lives are being engineered. You will put down this book with a new awareness of the link between devices and those who use them. And you will have been greatly entertained.” -- John Polanyi, Nobel Laureate

“This book saves lives. Strong words? Yes, but this is a strong book: engaging, easy to read, but carrying a powerful message. We have far too long neglected the human and social side of technology. When accidents happen, we rush to find blame, to sue, fire, penalize and otherwise punish people when it is the system that is at fault. The result is needless accidents in vehicles, hospitals, manufacturing plants and, worse, no way of stemming the tide, of learning from our actions and making life better, safer, more enjoyable. The Human Factor can indeed revolutionize the way we live with technology. Read this book: it can save lives.” -- Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things and co-founder of the Nielsen Norman group

"We've all had frustrating experiences with gadgets, devices, and machines that seem to have been designed by idiots.  They make our lives more difficult and sometimes even dangerous.  The designers weren't really idiots, of course, but they failed because they hadn't taken full account of the physical, psychological, social, and political context in which their designs had to function.  Kim Vicente peels away this context like the layers on an onion, and in the process tells the true story of why so many of the technologies critical to our lives fall so short of their potential.  He shows us how technologies are far more than mere machines – they are creations of societies as well as scientists and engineers.  And he shows us, too, how we all have an urgent responsibility to understand what makes technologies succeed or fail.  Moving from toothbrushes to nuclear reactors to the Walkerton water tragedy, The Human Factor is a triumph of investigation, analysis, and marvelous storytelling – a must-read at the dawn of the technology-supercharged 21st century." -- Thomas Homer-Dixon, author of The Ingenuity Gap


From the Hardcover edition.