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Hi, this is Mark Raven. 
Welcome to lien blog audio. 

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This is episode 3, 32. 
This is a post that was 

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published on June 12, 2023 
titled, A near-miss with 

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Amazon's publishing platform, 
save draft, or publish my new 

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book, the mistakes that make us 
cultivating, a culture of 

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learning and Innovation is still
only in a draft State before the

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final proof reading. 
Well, actually, the proofreading

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is taking place right now. 
Now you can learn more about the

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book and and get a preview by 
the way, but I'm going to 

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mistakes book.com. 
So trying to get some proof 

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copies or Advanced copies. 
That can't be aren't supposed to

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be sold because it's printed on 
the cover you know, not for not 

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for resale. 
But anyway getting these printed

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by Amazon as I'm doing as part 
of the final stages of the 

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publishing process here, sure 
does open up the possibility of 

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mistakenly hitting a yellow 
button on the On the Amazon 

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screen that says publish your 
paperback book instead of the 

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button just to the left of it 
that it wanted to click that 

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says save as draft and there's a
screenshot in the blog post. 

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You can go to lean blog dot org,
slash audio 332. 

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Now I didn't make that mistake. 
It's a near Miss but it's 

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something that sort of 
identified as a risk for me and 

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other authors and Publishers. 
I wasn't sure if the time if 

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there is some sort of Step that 
That happens if you accidentally

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hit publish by mistake because 
it pop up and ask, are you sure 

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and look. 
Are you sure? 

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Dialog boxes are by? 
No means perfect mistake 

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proofing. 
But based on a Google search 

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looking at this, you find the 
panicked questions of people who

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mistakenly hit that button. 
So I'm guessing there is no 

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confirmation or at least, 
there's not good enough. 

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Mistake proofing. 
I've made a mistake like this 

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before with Podcast episode. 
And on the my favorite mistake 

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podcast, I hit publish instead 
of save draft, I wrote a blog 

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post about that, another podcast
and mistakes. 

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There's a link in the blog post,
but you on the anchor podcasting

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platform, I was able to 
unpublish it without causing too

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many problems. 
I think the worst thing is that 

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the episode appeared in some 
people's podcast apps before the

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audio, then disappeared, when I 
unpublished it, which probably 

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through an error message. 
If they tried to hit play, So, a

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little embarrassing little 
frustrating at my part again, 

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you know, that system via the 
publish button. 

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In the draft button, were real 
close to each other. 

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So, having to unpublish a book? 
Yeah, I figured would cause more

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problems with Amazon. 
Now, I did some more Google 

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searching. 
It seems like, not surprisingly.

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This happens a lot, it's easy to
unpublish immediately, 

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especially if nobody has yet 
purchased the book and, and this

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depends on you noticing right 
away that you hit the wrong 

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button by mistake. 
You might Notice on screen or 

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I'm guessing the Amazon in my 
experience with them. 

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They'll send an email to you 
announcing that you've published

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your book. 
Now, it seems like a former 

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mistake proofing, where the 
system has been designed in a 

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way so that the user can at 
least easily detect and undo a 

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mistake. 
We can think of this as a 

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mitigation strategy, but better 
yet is preventing mistakes. 

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Telling people, you know, 
authors are authors and 

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Publishers. 
I made up a word combining 

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office. 
Sure. 

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Telling people to be careful is 
not a fully effective strategy. 

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Now, you know, maybe Amazon 
could move those two buttons, 

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the publish and save draft 
buttons to be a little further 

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apart. 
The bright yellow publish button

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is still likely to draw your eye
and mouse to it. 

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Even if you intend to click 
draft, which is kind of a boring

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light gray button. 
So, when we make a mistake like 

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this, it's called human error. 
Some people ask, well, what can 

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we do since people are 
imperfect? 

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Well, What we can do is 
recognize what we have to do is 

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that we recognize that humans 
are imperfect and then go Design

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Systems that prevent errors 
protecting us from ourselves 

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instead of just throwing up our 
hands and frustration instead of

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being resigned to human error, 
we can work to prevent it 

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through better systems and 
better design when I posted an 

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earlier briefer version of this 
on LinkedIn. 

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There was an insightful comment 
from Sid Atkinson he said 

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developers and testers typically
Perience. 

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These workflows so often that 
they forget that many of us will

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ever only perform some of these 
tasks once. 

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The number of non intuitive 
workflows are things that 

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utterly lack Clarity fills, 
oceans. 

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I think this will be one of the 
biggest steps forward will make 

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in these experiences will come 
from the interface list app. 

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In other words, like AI models. 
Like chap CPT will allow us to 

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talk to something to accomplish 
our goals with more humanist, 

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validation happening prior to an
activity being Completed end of 

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quote, again thanks to sit 
Atkinson for his comment. 

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So it's a keep this all in mind 
if you're the designer of 

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software or other interfaces 
instead of saying, well, the 

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human user shouldn't do that, 
it's better to make it more 

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difficult for them to do the 
wrong thing and to make it 

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easier for them to do the right 
thing. 

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So again, for this blog post, if
you want to read it, if you want

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to see the screenshot, if you 
want to post a comment, 

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criticizing me for not being 
careful enough for almost not 

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being careful enough. 
You can go to lean blog dot org 

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slash audio 332 almost not being
careful enough. 

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You can go to lean blog dot org 
slash audio 332