ABSTRACT
'Human error' as explanation for accidents has become increasingly unsatisfying. Human factors risks falling into the trap of citing 'human error' by any other name. Just like 'human error', labels also hide what really went on, and instead simply judge people for what they did not do. The use of large terms in findings and explanations of human error may be seen as a rite of passage into psychological phenomena. Investigations into human error do this a lot. The leaving of a trace is not yet common practice. And for the lack of it, a lot of breath is wasted on discussions about whose claim carries the most explanatory weight. In practice, building an analytic trace is often a give-and-take between top-down and bottom-up strategies. The other way to leave a trace is to start with the large concept, rather than with the data that instantiates that concept.
