human-factors

human-factors as a discipline is maintained for the sake of risk-management. Its purpose is to optimize human-system interaction to reduce risk — this is teleological (Law 8d), not dependency.

for-whose-sake: human-reliability quantifies how likely operators are to perform correctly, and this quantification is maintained specifically to serve the human-factors discipline, which uses such data to design systems around human capabilities and limitations. The purpose is by design — safety engineers quantify reliability to inform human-factors optimization.

for-whose-sake: decision-support-system is a tool maintained to serve human-factors. Its designed purpose is to aid human operators in making better decisions by presenting relevant information, analyzing options, and reducing cognitive load. Human-factors is the discipline that designs systems around human capabilities. Direction is correct: servant (decision-support-system)→master (human-factors).

Cognitive-workload as a concept is built for the sake of human-factors engineering. It provides the framework for measuring mental effort to inform task design that matches human cognitive capacity. Law 8d: the servant (cognitive-workload) points at the master (human-factors).

The formal study of human error as a concept emerged from human factors engineering. Human factors research (beginning in the mid-20th century) developed the taxonomy and analysis methods that constitute human error theory. Human factors predates and fed into human error as a distinct conceptual category.