Thanks for the historical perspective. Toyota has done a lot of innovation on the continuous improvement front that we’d all be wise to learn from.

The notion of mistake-proof comes originally from Industrial Engineering; in particular, it comes from Shigeo Shingo of Toyota. At Toyota, Poka-Yoke is a principle that is followed for real-world gestures as well as gestures on a computer screen. Apart from the business aspect, Poka-Yoke is also humane — it understands that humans are imperfect, so devices are designed humanely — to prevent the human from making mistakes or, worse, hurting herself.