HCI2002/EUPA: Teach Failure as Endemic warns Hatton

In a witty and shocking keynote address, Les Hatton - software reliability consultant and professor at the University of Kent - attacked the teaching of software design for its lack of contingency planning.

'They don't teach that failure is an integral part of software and they don't teach to plan for this from the beginning,' he said.

He was speaking at 2002's HCI/European Usability Professional's Association conference, where his story of failed geological expeditions to find oil - 19 out of 20 sunk oilwells are dry - went down impressively well as he showed how invisible bugs in the software turn science into guesswork.

He parodied the industry procedure for releasing new software as:
* Think of a good idea.
* Add bugs and an incomprehensible interface.
* Release.
* Crush competition ruthlessly.

He reminded the audience that all new technologies have a period of learning associated with them. In 1850-60, iron was the new bridge-building material and one in four railway bridges fell down. Why did other fields have a better success rate than software design? 'They've had longer and been sued more.'

However, he added that the fashion for endless change instead of refinement in software was aggravating the problem. In a parallel to what is required in user-centred design, he called for a development process that handles bugs during building rather than dependence on a testing phase at the end. He warned that a majority of defects do not show up in the newly completed product, but take a year or more to emerge.

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