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Abstract

While the impact of "human error" on failures of complex human-technology systems has widely been demonstrated and accepted, the relevance of situational and task-related characteristics on human performance has not yet been considered sufficiently. For this purpose and on the example of electrically powered wheel chair control this paper analyzes the effects of situational characteristics ( e.g., turns to the left/right in the backward/forward driving mode) on the impact of fine motor abilities on human performance. A study with 23 participants is described in the paper, during which relevant data such as the subjects' precision and aiming capacity, the number of collisions caused while driving as an indicator for human performance, and the situational characteristics were measured. The data analyses demonstrate an influence of especially the number of turns driven to the right in the backward mode on the impact of the precision ability on the number of safety-critical collisions. The results highlight the necessity not only to develop a wheelchair system which is adaptable to the user’s fine motor abilities, but also to the situational characteristics in order to increase the dependability of the human-technology system at hand.