Enhancing the usability of safety software for microcomputers

With the proliferation of microcomputers, increasing effort is being made to write programs dealing with occupational safety and health. So as to assure the widespread use of this material, it is important that it be prepared in a manner easy to use. Ignoring this consideration may cause the potential users to be repelled by it from the start, or that its use will be difficult and error-prone. This article dwells on some of the points that need to be borne in mind when writing such software to make it easy and pleasant to use. Additionally, a project, carried out by the author, is described, which makes use of a free-form program access approach, as opposed to a purely menu-driven one. Two potential extensions of this approach are then described.