Glossary » safety
safety
minimizing the risk of harm to people or the environment. Possible types of harm include physical harm (repetitive stress syndrome, electrocution), mental anguish (lack of privacy, negative self-attributions), and threats to property (fraud, vandalism).
Safe systems attempt to minimize both the maximum harm that is possible and to provide robustness to minimize the probability that a harmful result will occur. This is achieved by developing error-tolerant systems and designing user interaction sequences that reduce the possibility of human error.
