safety

toc =Safety= Safety refers to how "safe" a system is--how well it protects the user from harm. Intuitively, we all understand safety. But safety in design can take on multiple aspects--physical safety (eg. brain damage), mental safety (confusion, anger), identity safety (credit-card theft, anyone?), information safety (Coca Cola's secret recipe), etc.

While few technologies change and evolve over time, as users change and evolve the technology to their uses, new and unintended uses for technology create new safety issues.

Physical Safety
When most people hear the word "safety", they think of physical safety--safety from physical harm such as fires, electrocution, loss of life or limb, etc. Physical safety issues addresses a variety of aspects, such as:
 * Protection from loss of life or serious injury (eg. race-cars)
 * Protection from natural causes (eg. earthquake-proof buildings, fire-proof jackets)
 * Protection from less-serious injuries (eg. safety-scissors, plastic butterknives)

With design, designers often elect for a high level of safety even when it compromises other design features [1], such as convinience, aesthetics, and ease of use.

Mental Safety
Mental safety, not usually addressed in design, refers to safety from mental and emotional arm. While rarely discussed in CCIT design classes, mental safety is an important part of large-scale systems. Mental safety covers issues such as:
 * Protection from confusion (eg. directional arrow keys placed in a plus-shape)
 * Protection from emotional harm such as anger or frustration

Mental safety requires designers to create environments of ease and comfort for users. For example, with Paramount Canada's Wonderland, all the rides are certified "safe"--i.e. that you won't fall off a roller-coaster in the middle of a loop--and this adds tremendous enjoyment to the overall experience. Similarly, designers design things like shallow kids pools, hard-to-remove seatbelts for young children, etc.

Information Safety
As we live in an information society, especially with the explosion of the internet, information safety becomes a very important issue in design. Information safety can be classified into two parts:
 * Corporate safety (eg. Coca Cola's secret recipe)
 * Personal safety (eg. your credit-card information)

One of the more commonly-known forms of information safety refers to **identidy information**, and **identidy theft.** Companies must make sure that they don't leak out or abuse your credit-card information, your email address, or other sensitive materials. (For a more comprehensive understanding of information safety, please take CCT209.)

One common breach of informtion safety is **spam**--when a user's email or address is divulged without permission to a third-party, who proceeds to send them unsolicited bulk-email (or bulk-mail). While Canada enforces some level of privacy (see below: PIPEDA), some companies engage in unethical actions such as selling customer email addresses en-masse to spammers or other companies in order to make a quick profit.

PIPEDA
Under Canadian law, organizations must comply with PIPEDA--the [|Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act]--which regulates and restricts the methods in which companies can store, access, and transmit personal information. For example, PIPEDA states that companies may not transfer user email addresses to other companies without explicit permission from each user. PIPEDA represents one government-supported step towards information safety for Canadians.

=References= [1] __CCT333 Lecture__. By Mike Jones. Sheridan College Institute of Technology, Oakville. 10 Oct. 2006.