Moody’s gave the best rating to PCAA in 2007. Desjardins lost 591 million because of PCAA in the last quarter of 2008. In 2009, Moody’s express warning on the Risk Management at Desjardins since they do not manage properly complex financial products such as the PCAA.
It appears that overconfidence in Moody’s was one of Desjardins biggest mistake in this matter. The irony here is that Moody’s rate negatively institutions (Desjardins) that are in difficulty because they relied on Moody’s positive rating of certain financial product. It sound like Moody’s rates Moody’s’ negatively.
Categories: Human Errors · Human Factors · Moody's
Last year, the government of Quebec asked Cognitive Group to do a heuristic evaluation (expert evaluating usability with a list of usability heuristics) and usability testing of their web portal. First, heuristic evaluation is not reliable because:
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Categories: Cognitive Egonomics · Cognitive Engineering · Don Norman · Gallileo · HCI · Human Computer Interaction · Human Factors · Interaction Design · Jacob Nielsen · User Experience · cognitive group
Tagged: Design decision, Heuristic Evaluation, Usability
A few years ago, I was in a group that got lost during a hiking trip. One member of the group said “I know the way out. We just have to turn right and walk in that direction for 10 minutes; we will see a little farmhouse and the road to civilization”. He was sure of himself. We followed his lead but after 15 minutes of walking, no sign of the little farmhouse. The group began questioning the direction. After a while, it became obvious that we were led in the wrong direction. This leader failed and the magnitude of his failure was greater because of the high degree of confidence he expressed.
This graph shows the evolution of George W. Bush’s approval rating over time. His approval rating rose to 68% in March 2003, at (more…)
Categories: Change Management · Christopher Wickens · Cognitive Egonomics · Cognitive Engineering · Don Norman · Human Errors · Human Factors · Jack Welch · User Experience · cognitive ergonomics · cognitive group
Tagged: Bush approval ratings, Change Management, Leading Change
1. Know what is important. 1. Bring users to your site, 2. Ensure usefulness and usability, 3. Maximize trust. You will make much more money trying to bring users to your site and ensuring good usability than trying to have beautiful flash and look. Most users care only about finding rapidly what they are looking for and achieving their goals. They don’t care (more…)
Categories: Cognitive Egonomics · Cognitive Engineering · HCI · Human Computer Interaction · Human Factors · Interaction Design · Jacob Nielsen · SEO · Thomas Tullis · Usability · User Experience · Web usability · cognitive group
Tagged: Jacob Nielsen, Usability, Web Design
This letter was published in Business Week
“Whitman says: “Despite its controversial reputation, nuclear is efficient and reliable.” Yet since 1950 there have been 20 nuclear accidents. One was major (on Mar. 28, 1979, at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor) and one catastrophic (on Apr. 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant). How can we say a major nuclear accident will not happen again?
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Categories: Christine Whitman · Cognitive Egonomics · Cognitive Engineering · Human Error · Human Factors
You arrive at home after a long day and you rush to prepare food. You turn-on the burner but oups !, you realize that you activated the wrong burner. You feel frustrated and tell yourself “I should have paid more attention”. If it is a new stove, you might tell to yourself “I should have look at the instructions”. Some might even blame themselves for this error.
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Categories: Alphonses Chapanis · Cognitive Egonomics · Cognitive Engineering · HCI · Human Computer Interaction · Human Errors · Human Factors · James Reason · Paul M. Fitts · User Experience
