Outline of a Failure: A True Story of Nine Precepts, with Two Morals

摘要

This is not a conventional case history. It is concerned with failure rather than with triumph, and further, with a personal definition of failure. Failure, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. The system I shall call SOS, when measured in terms of absolute achievement, might not be considered a failure. When measured against corporate plans and goals it might not be admitted to be a failure. But when measured against some aspects of the state-of-the-art it professed to advance, against fundamental ergonomic principles, and, especially, against its potential, it was a failure. Specifically, it failed to meet the expectations of one user. It is only fair, then, to begin by characterizing those expectations and giving some indication of their sources. Then follow five sections on various classes of failure. (The Precepts of the title are embedded in these sections.) The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the Two Morals. (ERA citation 11:008156)