Convergence as a Life and Death Issue

I read an article this morning that highlights a problem with the interface between people and technology. The title of the article is Misdirected Email Doomed Convoy.

How many times have you received an email that was actually intended for someone else? I have actually built a collection of these stories that I use in class to scare my students into paying closer attention to detail before hitting "send."

This article says that an email sent to a wrong address kept a convoy from receiving updated instructions. 10 people died (another is missing in action, but presumed dead) and 17 were wounded.

How difficult is it for a person with average text abilities to mistype a word, or an email address? Of course, we all do it all the time. In fact, even professional writers still rely on professional editors to proofread their work. Isn't it then reasonable to assume that there is a high likelihood of errors in any typed text? Is it also reasonable to assume that there would be a higher likelihood of errors among a population with text disabilities?

Email, ladies and gentlemen, is not a UDLified communication tool. In fact, it isn't even a very sophisticated tool for people with high text abilities. It's popular because it's a cheap way to communicate. (Reference Tom Malone's The Future of Work).

My point is that it is important for us to step back and look strategically at our world. Businesses, educational institutions, and military organizations are all complex systems. Systems are composed of people, processes, and technology which are coordinated to achieve a desired result. We need to understand where to use each of those elements within the system, and how they interact. Allowed to evolve without regulation, systems take on unstable forms and eventually collapse.

In the case of these soldiers, the breakdown occurred at the interface between the sender and his/her keyboard. The situation could have been prevented by a more robust interface at the sender's side. Something that provided a scaffold to help the sender ensure that he was typing in the address correctly, and that the address was for the correct recipient. Maybe this is a visual aid, an auditory signal, or just a check routine that runs behind the scenes in the computer.