What the Death Star can tell us about ergonomics methods

摘要

Imagine having to identify a critical flaw in a highly complex planetoidsizedrnorbital battle station under extreme time pressure, and with nornclear idea at the outset where the vulnerability will lie? This was thernchallenge faced by the Rebel Alliance in the film Star Wars. One of thernbelligerents, the Imperial Empire, considered it highly unlikely arnweakness would be found even if the other combatant were inrnpossession of a full technical readout of the station. How could it berndone? The first option presented in this paper is to employ traditionalrnerror identification methods of the sort contemporaneous with thernfilm’s release in 1977 and still in widespread use today. The findingsrnshow the limitations of this deterministic world-view because thernmethod selected did not predict the actual vulnerability exploited. Thernsecond option is to use a systems-based method to model the DeathrnStar’s functional constraints and affordances and use this to assess thernsystem’s resilience. This method did detect the film ending, andrnseveral others. What began as an amusing aside has turned into arnhighly effective means to communicate across disciplines andrnenhance ergonomic teaching and learning. It also provides arncompelling narrative around the use of reductionist methods forrnsystems problems, and some wider implications for ergonomicrnmethod selection inmore earth-bound settings.