In 2011, realizing it desperately needed to offer a competitive product to Airbus’ A320neo, Boeing embarked on a project to upgrade its legendary 737 aircraft to match the A320neo’s efficiency. Limited by the constraints of the 737’s original design and their desire to minimize training needed by pilots to fly the new aircraft, Boeing made multiple critical compromises in the aircraft’s design. 346 deaths and $87 billion later, we have all been reminded of the importance of rigorous design processes and the need to engineer systems for the realities of the end users and their environment. This talk dives into the motivations for the design compromises, the human factors considerations that were disregarded, and how a Fortune 100 company’s prioritization of profit over good design practice led to its stunning fall from grace. The lessons learned are directly applicable to all kinds of developers, from web designers to mission-critical infrastructure engineers.

This talk was rated as the best talk at NDC Oslo 2021 and NDC TechTown 2022.

Since the relevance of this talk to a software conference may not be immediately apparent, I’d like to note that the concepts of human factors design, interface design, and user training are all of critical importance to any software development project. This talk offers a way to demonstrate just how critical those aspects can be by presenting this enthralling case study of how a series of bad decisions led to 346 deaths and $87 billion in costs and loss of revenue. It ties science, engineering, process, UX/UI design, software development, and personnel management together in a unifying way that inspires a sense of importance to the work that developers do. While the topic is not simple, it does not require a rigorous technical background to engage with and is accessible by all audiences. I have found that this talk is very well-suited to be a keynote, as it does not focus on any specific technology, language, or framework, but instead focuses on the importance of the choices that all developers and engineers make.

As I hold a Ph.D. in Human Systems Integration from MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, I’m a world expert in this specific field who is uniquely qualified to speak on this topic. I have given an early version of this talk as a keynote before, a recording of which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7PNS0QEw0w