Assignment 3 Task Analysis, Human Error, and Reliability Objective: The first goal of this project is to illustrate how to (a) perform a task analysis, (b) use the task analysis to estimate the time needed to perform a task, and (c) use the task analysis to identify the possible errors that could occur for each task component. The second goal of this project is to show you how to compute the reliability of a system and determine the factors that can increase or decrease a system's reliability Part 1: Task Analysis Task analysis refers to the decomposition of a task into components performed by a person to achieve one or more goals. Consider the task of using a fingerprint reader to access secure information on a computer. Many would agree that it is a simple task that can be used to achieve the goal of maintaining security of the information stored on the computer However, if you decompose this task, you can see that this "simple" task consists of 9 individual task components: 1. Locate a prompt on the display indicating that the user needs to place his or her finger on the fingerprint reader 2. Locate the fingerprint reader 3. Select which hand to move toward the fingerprint reader 4. Move the hand towards the reader 5. Select which finger to place over the reader 6. Extend the finger until it is over the fingerprint reader 7. Rotate the hand until the palm side is down and the finger is on the reader 8. Click on "OK" or "START" for the reader to start scanning or reading the fingerprint 9. Locate the prompt displaying confirmation that the fingerprint was read By breaking down the task into its components, the human factors professional can use this information to (a) estimate the time necessary to perform the entire task and (b) determine the steps at which errors can occur One way to estimate how much time is needed to complete a task is to estimate the time needed for the task's component perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes. In Card, Moran, and Newell's (1983) Model Human Processor, they estimated the time to perform perceptual processing to be 100 ms, cognitive processing to be 70 ms, and motor processing to be 100 ms. Cognitive (70 ms) Perceptual (100 ms) (100 ms) Using the steps from the task analysis and the time estimates from the Model Human Processor, the estimated time needed to perform the task would be 840 ms Assignment 3 Task Analysis, Human Error, and Reliability Objective: The first goal of this project is to illustrate how to (a) perform a task analysis, (b) use the task analysis to estimate the time needed to perform a task, and (c) use the task analysis to identify the possible errors that could occur for each task component. The second goal of this project is to show you how to compute the reliability of a system and determine the factors that can increase or decrease a system's reliability Part 1: Task Analysis Task analysis refers to the decomposition of a task into components performed by a person to achieve one or more goals. Consider the task of using a fingerprint reader to access secure information on a computer. Many would agree that it is a simple task that can be used to achieve the goal of maintaining security of the information stored on the computer However, if you decompose this task, you can see that this "simple" task consists of 9 individual task components: 1. Locate a prompt on the display indicating that the user needs to place his or her finger on the fingerprint reader 2. Locate the fingerprint reader 3. Select which hand to move toward the fingerprint reader 4. Move the hand towards the reader 5. Select which finger to place over the reader 6. Extend the finger until it is over the fingerprint reader 7. Rotate the hand until the palm side is down and the finger is on the reader 8. Click on "OK" or "START" for the reader to start scanning or reading the fingerprint 9. Locate the prompt displaying confirmation that the fingerprint was read By breaking down the task into its components, the human factors professional can use this information to (a) estimate the time necessary to perform the entire task and (b) determine the steps at which errors can occur One way to estimate how much time is needed to complete a task is to estimate the time needed for the task's component perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes. In Card, Moran, and Newell's (1983) Model Human Processor, they estimated the time to perform perceptual processing to be 100 ms, cognitive processing to be 70 ms, and motor processing to be 100 ms. Cognitive (70 ms) Perceptual (100 ms) (100 ms) Using the steps from the task analysis and the time estimates from the Model Human Processor, the estimated time needed to perform the task would be 840 ms