How to use checklist as a design tool?
Irrespective of exceptional expertise and high experience levels, human error is inevitable. By using checklists, human performance can be enhanced in many scenarios.
Primarily checklists were used in aviation and healthcare industries to aid the users not to rely on their memory alone while performing critical procedures or handling an emergency. In non-emergency scenarios also a checklist can be used. For example checklists can be used to pre-check a configuration, supervise a linear sequence, keep track of tasks etc.
Checklists are the simplest systems that help in completing a bunch of tasks or evaluating the state of a system or checking the sequence of tasks when completing a task.
As a designer, consider checklist as a possible solution using these two questions.
- Does the user need help to remember steps to complete the task?
- Does the need to evaluate how well a task is/was done?
If the answer is YES to one or both the questions, use checklist as a tool to help.
🥂 to checklists!