Our fascination with new technologies is based on the assumption that more powerful automation will overcome human limitations and make our systems 'faster, better, cheaper, ' resulting in simple, easy tasks for people. But how does new technology and more powerful automation change our work? Research in Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) looks at the intersection of people, technology, and work. What it has found is not stories of simplification through more automation, but stories of complexity and adaptation. When work changed through new technology, practitioners had to cope with new complexities and tighter constraints. They adapted their strategies and the artifacts to work around difficulties and accomplish their goals as responsible agents. The surprise was that new powers had transformed work, creating new roles, new decisions, and new vulnerabilities. Ironically, more autonomous machines have created the requirement for more sophisticated forms of coordination across people, and across people and machines, to adapt to new demands and pressures. This book synthesizes these emergent Patterns though stories about coordination and mis-coordination, resilience and brittleness, affordance and clumsiness in a variety of settings, from a hospital intensive care unit, to a nuclear power control room, to a space shuttle control center. The stories reveal how new demands make work difficult, how people at work adapt but get trapped by complexity, and how people at a distance from work oversimplify their perceptions of the complexities, squeezing practitioners. The authors explore how CSE observes at the intersection of people, technology, and work, how CSE abstracts patterns behind thesurface details and wide variations, and how CSE discovers promising new directions to help people cope with complexities. The stories of CSE show that one key to well-adapted work is the ability to be prepared to be surprised. Are you ready?

Nothing has been more prolific over the past century than human/machine interaction. Automobiles, telephones, computers, manufacturing machines, robots, office equipment, machines large and small; all affect the very essence of our daily lives. However, this interaction has not always been efficient or easy and has at times turned fairly hazardous. Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) seeks to improve this situation by the careful study of human/machine interaction as the meaningful behavior of a unified system. Written by pioneers in the development of CSE, Joint Cognitive Systems: Foundations of Cognitive Systems Engineering offers a principled approach to studying human work with complex technology. The authors use a top-down, functional approach and emphasize a proactive (coping) perspective on work that overcomes the limitations of the structural human information processing view. They describe a conceptual framework for analysis with concrete theories and methods for joint system modeling that can be applied across the spectrum of single human/machine systems, social/technical systems, and whole organizations. The book explores both current and potential applications of CSE illustrated by examples. Understanding the complexities and functions of the human/machine interaction is critical to designing safe, highly functional, and efficient technological systems. This is a critical reference for students, designers, and engineers in a wide variety of disciplines.

Our fascination with new technologies is based on the assumption that more powerful automation will overcome human limitations and make our systems 'faster, better, cheaper,' resulting in simple, easy tasks for people. But how does new technology and more powerful automation change our work? Research in Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) looks at the intersection of people, technology, and work. What it has found is not stories of simplification through more automation, but stories of complexity and adaptation. When work changed through new technology, practitioners had to cope with new complexities and tighter constraints. They adapted their strategies and the artifacts to work around difficulties and accomplish their goals as responsible agents. The surprise was that new powers had transformed work, creating new roles, new decisions, and new vulnerabilities. Ironically, more autonomous machines have created the requirement for more sophisticated forms of coordination across people, and across people and machines, to adapt to new demands and pressures. This book synthesizes these emergent Patterns though stories about coordination and mis-coordination, resilience and brittleness, affordance and clumsiness in a variety of settings, from a hospital intensive care unit, to a nuclear power control room, to a space shuttle control center. The stories reveal how new demands make work difficult, how people at work adapt but get trapped by complexity, and how people at a distance from work oversimplify their perceptions of the complexities, squeezing practitioners. The authors explore how CSE observes at the intersection of people, technology, and work, how CSE abstracts patterns behind the surface details and wide variations, and how CSE discovers promising new directions to help people cope with complexities. The stories of CSE show that one key to well-adapted work is the ability to be prepared to be surprised. Are you ready?

Nothing has been more prolific over the past century than human/machine interaction. Automobiles, telephones, computers, manufacturing machines, robots, office equipment, machines large and small; all affect the very essence of our daily lives. However, this interaction has not always been efficient or easy and has at times turned fairly hazardous. Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) seeks to improve this situation by the careful study of human/machine interaction as the meaningful behavior of a unified system. Written by pioneers in the development of CSE, Joint Cognitive Systems: Foundations of Cognitive Systems Engineering offers a principled approach to studying human work with complex technology. The authors use a top-down, functional approach and emphasize a proactive (coping) perspective on work that overcomes the limitations of the structural human information processing view. They describe a conceptual framework for analysis with concrete theories and methods for joint system modeling that can be applied across the spectrum of single human/machine systems, social/technical systems, and whole organizations. The book explores both current and potential applications of CSE illustrated by examples. Understanding the complexities and functions of the human/machine interaction is critical to designing safe, highly functional, and efficient technological systems. This is a critical reference for students, designers, and engineers in a wide variety of disciplines.

For Resilience Engineering, 'failure' is the result of the adaptations necessary to cope with the complexity of the real world, rather than a breakdown or malfunction. The performance of individuals and organizations must continually adjust to current conditions and, because resources and time are finite, such adjustments are always approximate. This definitive new book explores this groundbreaking new development in safety and risk management, where 'success' is based on the ability of organizations, groups and individuals to anticipate the changing shape of risk before failures and harm occur. Featuring contributions from many of the worlds leading figures in the fields of human factors and safety, Resilience Engineering provides thought-provoking insights into system safety as an aggregate of its various components, subsystems, software, organizations, human behaviours, and the way in which they interact. The book provides an introduction to Resilience Engineering of systems, covering both the theoretical and practical aspects. It is written for those responsible for system safety on managerial or operational levels alike, including safety managers and engineers (line and maintenance), security experts, risk and safety consultants, human factors professionals and accident investigators.

For Resilience Engineering, 'failure' is the result of the adaptations necessary to cope with the complexity of the real world, rather than a breakdown or malfunction. The performance of individuals and organizations must continually adjust to current conditions and, because resources and time are finite, such adjustments are always approximate. This definitive new book explores this groundbreaking new development in safety and risk management, where 'success' is based on the ability of organizations, groups and individuals to anticipate the changing shape of risk before failures and harm occur. Featuring contributions from many of the worlds leading figures in the fields of human factors and safety, Resilience Engineering provides thought-provoking insights into system safety as an aggregate of its various components, subsystems, software, organizations, human behaviours, and the way in which they interact. The book provides an introduction to Resilience Engineering of systems, covering both the theoretical and practical aspects. It is written for those responsible for system safety on managerial or operational levels alike, including safety managers and engineers (line and maintenance), security experts, risk and safety consultants, human factors professionals and accident investigators.