Book Reading #39: Why We Make Mistakes

Reference Information
Title: Why We Make Mistakes
Author: Joseph T. Hallinan
Publisher: 2009 Crown Archetype

Summary:

Introduction:

I thought this chapter was very similar to chapter 5 from the book design of everyday things since both these chapters address human errors and their types. He also mentions some interesting facts like most of us show a preference for the number 7. He also talks about how people keep forgetting their passwords. He states the we make mistakes but blame the wrong cause. In most cases, the human is not to blame but the poor design of the machine is.

Chapter 1:

This chapter talks about our perception about our vision. The author mentions that we don't really see as much as we think we see. Many a times we just look, but we don't really see i.e. we get a general image, but we don't focus on details. He also mentions some interesting human tendencies like we are more likely to look at our right first. Author says that we don't find something often, we tend to miss it. To prove this he mentions error rate of radiologists in finding cancerous tumors.

Discussion:

I enjoyed both these chapters. The examples provided by the author are very interesting and sometimes surprising. I think knowing why we make mistakes can help us to avoid mistakes.