Depending on when you’re reading this, you may or may not have had the opportunity to see the Nov. 2 episode of The Simpsons in which a touchscreen voting machine switches Homer’s vote, then tries to kill him when he realizes the thing is rigged. “This doesn’t happen in America!” Homer screams. “Maybe Ohio, but not in America!”

It is rather ironic to see e-voting machines portrayed so diabolically, given that they were originally heralded as the cavalry coming to rescue the integrity of voting. It is eight years now since the election brouhaha in Florida created a mini-crisis in American democracy, spawning arguments over punch card ballots and ballot design.

Electronic voting machines were presented as a panacea and many state and local governments rushed to obtain them, without anybody doing any due diligence on how they should be designed, and without any body establishing standards for how they should operate. Subsequent concerns about touchscreen usability, lost votes, and potential security breaches motivated many of these same agencies to dump the technology they had spent millions to obtain and switch to optically scanned ballots. It’s kind of like a long, slow train wreck, with cars still coming off the track years later. Underlying the derailment is the issue of human factors in design, which basically is just about having something do that which you intend it to do.

Some claim that poor attention to human factors in voting machines changed the course of American history, and subsequently, world history. Whether one accepts that view or not, no one can dispute that there are many areas where the regard for human factors is a grave matter. From the controls of a commuter aircraft, to a soldier’s portable target designator, to a hospital’s radiation therapy device, people’s lives are on the line, affected every day by the role of human factors in design. And lest we forget, as you read this, somewhere deep underground are people facing a control panel that can launch nuclear weapons. Let’s hope some usability consultants were called in for that.

Another important aspect of usability revolves around its impact on social participation, that is, making technology accessible to all segments of the population. There are many people who struggle with high-technology products due to inherent aptitude, education level, cultural background, age, socioeconomic status, and so on. By not taking their needs into account, we run the risk of excluding them from the benefits of technology, transforming them into the equivalent of ghosts — beings who inhabit the technological world, but are unable to interact with it. And, in a world where virtually every occupation involves some interaction with technology, such exclusionary design can impact a person’s ability to earn a living. Whether operating a commercial appliance, an office machine, a piece of industrial equipment, or simply a point-of-sale terminal, people must often master a complex device to master their job.

All of that seems to restate the obvious, yet in spite of the frequent lip service to human factors, there are still far too many devices that are still far too difficult to operate. Why? Often, human factors conflict with cost targets or aesthetics. Sometimes, designers’ intimate familiarity with their products blinds them to usability issues. And at other times, the culprit is simply haste — getting the thing out the door in time for the next trade show. But none of those are good excuses. The issue is too important to ignore. And that’s why human factors is one of the four criteria used to judge products entered in our annual Excellence in Design competition, which is open now. Good design is about making things that work right, which in turn, helps the world work right. And we’re looking to recognize some excellent examples. To enter this round of Excellence in Design, visit www.appliancedesign.com/EID.

Richard Babyak, Editor
E-mail: babyakr@bnpmedia.com