Bad keystroke leads to $251 million stock buy

Bad keystroke leads to $251 million stock buy

“Fubon said that the trader was unfamiliar with new computer systems and will be fired.”

It’s a sad, sad day when the blame for such a massive mistake is placed on the user. Training or no, the responsibility for something that grave falls on the shoulders of the software makers. Clearly, there was a breakdown in the information design of the product.

[Note: I don’t like the idea of software “training”. First, you train bears to dance, you train lions to jump through hoops, and athletes train for competition. It implies some kind of inferiority, and it suggests a lot of boring, rote learning.

In regards to software, training is usually for a user interface that wasn’t designed very well. It’s a concept devised by a small percentage of techno-jocks who can’t understand why everyone can’t whip through the software like they can, but it’s an arrogant and insulting point of view. Well-designed, user-centric software is inherently usable and should require little – if any – training.]