The human factors people might tell us that "user error" isn't a useful term. The likelihood of a user not doing what he was supposed to should be accounted for in how the system is designed.
Recreational Pony Bottles, completely unnecessary? Why or why not?
- Thread starter Hartattack
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Practice. Practice. Maybe more practice.
It’s easy to forget to practice something you’ve only done once on a training course. After that you put it to the back of your mind. Then one day you need it and the last thing that comes into your mind is that thing you didn’t practice.
My personal admission…. Drysuit hose not connected and couldn’t free the suit inflate hose. Did I think to plug in the deco bailout hose tail, permanently bungeed next to the regulator (bailout had a helium mix). No, of course not. I’d completely forgotten about that hose because…. I’d not practiced connecting it. D'oh!
Out of sight, out of mind.
No doubt about that.
The human factors stuff bores me. But that is one nugget I was able to retain. A system that doesn't take into account that humans WILL mis-use it is a poorly designed system. How to apply that to the present discussion, I don't know. Does it argue for pony bottles or not? Beyond me.
Agree.
Pony bottles are only of use if the diver can handle them; not something for novices. When you get a new bit of kit you then must practice using it until "it sinks in".
One thing that's come out of the "forgot to do X" on the boat mistakes is that maybe you have a simple pre-dive check that's so simple but might find one of the obvious things. Sort of like the "is your oxygen turned on" discussion a little while back
I appreciate that this is the point of the buddy check. But it's not for your buddy, this is for you -- self-sufficiency.
As a veteran of more than 17 years of ScubaBoard threads, I have seen similar issues discussed many times, including some recent discussions. The question is the degree to which the system or the user is at fault in an accident. One very contentious thread was about a fatality in which a rebreather had been assembled incorrectly. One individual stated that it should not have been possible for the user to make that mistake because the rebreather should have been designed so that the incorrect fitting would not match. It would be a simple design change. He was nearly alone in that view, though, with his words drowned out by the majority repeating the phrase "user error!" over and over and over and over and over. The "change the system" guy kept repeating it, and everyone else got frustrated. Eventually the guy calling for that simple change in the rebreather's design was banned because he kept persisting, to the annoyance of others.
In a couple of recent threads, some people have been very emphatic in stating that a manufacturer has no obligation, moral or legal, to minimize the potential for user error. If the user makes a mistake using a product, it is 100% the user's fault. I do not share that position.
I heard a sidemount diver describe a mistake he made that is very similar to the pony bottle mistake. He was doing a deep trimix dive that included using a stage bottle with 21/35 for both a travel gas and an early decompression gas. When he did his gas switch to his bottom tanks, he started breathing from his right sidemount tank. Since it was a PITA to restow the hose on the stage, he left the regulator hanging over his right shoulder. Then he switched to his left tank, as usual. When he later switched back to his right tank, he switched to the stage by mistake, and it was a while before he realized he was breathing that high PPO2 mix. It seemed to me that he was both the user and the system designer, and he owed it to himself to change his system design so that he couldn't make that mistake as the user.
If I were a pony user with the chance for the mistakes described here, I would certainly change that system design. Why use a system that allows for such a mistake when it should be easy to to make a change that eliminates that possibility?
This thread has gone off the road of recreational diving, gone down the trail of solo diving, come back on the highway and gone across into the other lane of traffic, the technical diver lane of traffic. And it started in the Basic Forum. What!!!!????
See y'all in another 95 pages.
James
See y'all in another 95 pages.
James
Utterly disagree with that sentiment. Life support equipment needs to be designed properly from the start to eliminate user errors. I believe this is one of the benefits from the CE marking on rebreathers; for example that the loop cannot be reversed.
IMHO manufacturers have a moral and a duty of care to ensure there's no design flaws that exacerbate errors through user error.
After that point, it's very much up to the 'user' to ensure they don't mess things up. At which point they take responsibility for their own actions.
undrwater
Contributor
CT-Rich
Contributor
My first regulator (circa 1980) had the same threading for the HP port as the LP port. You could accidentally attach your LP inflator to your HP port. It would be a user error, that was eventually eliminated by the manufacturers. the first computer I built, you could fry the motherboard by plugging the power supply in backwards. Today the plugs are designed so you can’t.
The expectation that a product or system is going appear fully formed and immutably perfect on shelf or dive boat is naive. Some mistakes I have made resulted in me simply realizing “damn, I am never making that mistake again” (marriage and breathing tests to make sure cylinder air is completely on come to mind). Some mistakes lead to changes in equipment or set-up (in this case color coding the pony reg and hose would be simplest).
The best lessons come through experience. The lesson for this diver shouldn’t be Ponies are bad. Maybe the lesson would be I need to change something to make it better….
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