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From: avr@hou2d.UUCP (Adam V. Reed)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Request for human interface design anecdotes
Message-ID: <1609@hou2d.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 4-Oct-87 14:22:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: hou2d.1609
Posted: Sun Oct  4 14:22:46 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Oct-87 06:36:34 EDT
References: <301@mv03.ecf.toronto.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel
Lines: 20
Keywords: human factors, interfaces
Summary: Computer jargon and user interfaces

In article <301@mv03.ecf.toronto.edu>, drascic@ecf.toronto.edu (jkins) writes:
> So I'm asking you folks for amusing and/or interesting stories dealing with
> Human Factors design.  They can be apocryphal, or personal experience,
> just please indicate which.  I'll even give you credit for them if you
> really want it.  > 		-john schrag

This is personal experience:

About 10 years ago, I was teaching AI to a class of doctoral candidates
in psychology. Because of the limitations of the machine we were using,
our LISP environment had very terse error messages and no error recovery
to speak of - it often crashed when a reserved word was used in the
wrong context. One day, the brightest student in the class wrote a
rather elegant small program, and I told her to save it on a diskette.
Her words: "I wrote 'SAVE TO DISKETTE A', just like you said. Then the
computer said 'WRITE PROTECTED'. So I wrote 'PROTECTED', and the system
crashed."
				Adam Reed
				Bell Labs
				hou2d!avr