Error Recovery Representations in Interactive System Development

This paper deals with human error resistance. In the first part of it, a short state-ofthe-art of human error resistance, i.e., error prevention and error correction will be presented. Then, error correction, which is usually divided into three sequential tasks: detection, explanation, and recovery will be described. The second part of the paper will put emphasis on error recovery, which is our main object of study. First and foremost, through an example, we will see what makes the distinction between forward and backward error recovery, i.e., how the system is able to restore its previous state after an error occurrence. In addition to it, the three different kinds of backward error recovery – undo, cancel, and stop – will be illustrated. Then, the limits of the current distinction between forward and backward error recovery will be highlighted. As a consequence, the paper proposes a new representation of error recovery based on two dimensions: error additional cost and system state degradation. In the context of time-critical systems, another dimension will be introduced: time .