Heuristic-based information acquisition and decision making among pilots

OBJECTIVE: This research was designed to examine the impact of heuristic-based approaches to the acquisition of task-related information on the selection of an optimal alternative during simulated in-flight decision making. BACKGROUND: The work integrated features of naturalistic and normative decision making and strategies of information acquisition within a computer-based, decision support framework. METHOD: The study comprised two phases, the first of which involved familiarizing pilots with three different heuristic-based strategies of information acquisition: frequency, elimination by aspects, and majority of confirming decisions. The second stage enabled participants to choose one of the three strategies of information acquisition to resolve a fourth (choice) scenario. RESULTS: The results indicated that task-oriented experience, rather than the information acquisition strategies, predicted the selection of the optimal alternative. It was also evident that of the three strategies available, the elimination by aspects information acquisition strategy was preferred by most participants. CONCLUSION: It was concluded that task-oriented experience, rather than the process of information acquisition, predicted task accuracy during the decision-making task. It was also concluded that pilots have a preference for one particular approach to information acquisition. APPLICATION: Applications of outcomes of this research include the development of decision support systems that adapt to the information-processing capabilities and preferences of users.     

Rapid Prototyping of Adaptable User Interfaces

User interface adaptation has been proposed in recent years as a means to achieve personalized accessibility and usability of user interfaces. Related user interface architectures, as well as a variety of related development method and tools, have also been elaborated. Admittedly, however, despite the recognized validity of the approach, which has been proved in practice in a series of prototype systems, the wider adoption and uptake of user interface adaptation approaches are still limited. One of the identified obstacles is the complexity intrinsic in designing such interfaces and the need of radically revising the current user interface design practice to account for (a) the alternative designs required for adaptation, (b) the parameters involved in driving adaptations (i.e., selecting among alternatives at a given point during interaction), and (c) the logic of adaptation at runtime. This article proposes a twofold tool-based support strategy for user interface adaptation development, based on (a) an adaptation development toolkit and related widget library, which directly embeds lexical level adaptations into common interactive widgets, and (b) embedding such a library in a common integrated development environment, thus allowing designers to define and view alternative adaptations at design time and create adaptable user interfaces through traditional prototyping. The aforementioned approach has been implemented in the domain of adaptable applications for older users, producing tools that are currently in use in the development of a large suite of interactive applications in various domains. The approach presented in this article is claimed to be the first and so far unique supporting rapid prototyping of adaptable user interfaces, thus minimizing the divergence between typical development practices and user interface adaptation development.     

飞行控制计算机采集处理系统的设计与实现

针对飞行控制计算机对无人机姿态和航迹信息采集处理的要求,本文给出以DSP TMS320LF2407A为平台的模拟量、通讯量、开关量采集处理的设计方案。该方案分别阐述了模拟量、通讯量、开关量接口电路、片选控制逻辑和类8259中断控制逻辑的CPLD思想、硬件滤波和软件抗干扰思想。该采集处理系统硬件接口简洁、实时性强、抗干扰特性好,具有很强的工程应用性。     

Task constraints and user-system interaction process under personnel decision support

Abstract

An experiment involving a simulated decision support system was carried out to examine the patterns of user-system interaction and decision information utilization under personnel decision support. A computer simulation program of personnel decision support was developed, using actual personnel management data from eight Chinese enterprises, and the process tracing techniques were adopted. Thirty-six subjects (users) participated in this experiment. A 2 × 2 design of task constraints was formulated including two forms of decision information representations (chunking vs. random) and two types of time pressure (3 minutes vs. 1 minute). The results showed that, in interacting with decision support systems, users’ weights of decision information attributes were closely correlated with the types of information search patterns. Under high time-pressure and chunking representation condition, more selective search strategies were adopted with a similar pattern of the sequential search as it was under low time-pressure. The user-system interaction revealed a linear additive process of information utilization. Implications of the results are discussed in relation to the design of effective decision support systems for complex decision situations.     

A structured methodology for comparative evaluation of user interface designs using usability criteria and measures

Previous research in software ergonomics has indicated the importance of evaluating the usability of computer user interfaces. This paper presents a quantitative basis for selecting from among multiple alternative interfaces relative to multiple criteria of usability concern. The proposed model consists of two main phases: the prescreening phase and the evaluation phase. The prescreening phase involves expert judgment-based assessment with qualitative criteria. The first phase uses absolute measurement analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to filter possible alternative interfaces to a reasonable subset. The evaluation phase involves user-based assessment such as user testing, with quantitative criteria. The objective of the second phase is to evaluate a subset of alternatives using objective measures and to select the best alternative. A set of criteria and measures for evaluating the usability of computer software designs is presented. The proposed methodology is demonstrated in the interface design of a database system used to analyze trip cases information of nuclear power plant.Relevance to industry

There is currently a focus on the usability of interactive computer software. Software developers, interface designers or human factors engineers often confront the task of comparative evaluation among systems, versions or interface designs. The proposed methodology provides practitioners with a structured approach to select the best interface based on usability criteria and measures.     

Integrated systems II: Multi-tier interfaces for integrating families of systems

Of critical importance is the design of the man-machine interfaces for general rule based systems. They must serve (i) as user-friendly interfaces for different classes of users for different applications and (ii) to invoke service components in integrated packages without interrogating users. These objectives are achieved with a multitier interface design whose two parts, the Interactive User-Friendly Interface (IUFI) and the System Interface (SI), communicate with each other via commonly used notational systems and can be invoked independently of each other. The user-friendly interface, which is uniquely designed for each user discipline, passes information to the SI. The SI does not change for new IUFI designs and it can be invoked by other rule based systems without interrogating users.Here the requirements for the IUFI and SI parts are identified, four different designs of multi-tier interfaces are given and two applications are described. Also included are guidelines for designing user friendly interfaces.     

How consistent is your web design?

Previous studies have indicated that when interfaces are designed consistently with regards to structure and physical attributes, higher performance and lower error rates are achieved than when interfaces are designed inconsistently. The objective of the current study was to develop a methodology to measure all aspects of computer interface consistency and assess the impact of linguistic inconsistency of interface design on user performance. Based on the background literature, seven factors were identified as affecting overall consistency. Based on this identification, a structured questionnaire of 125 items was developed and a factor analysis was conducted which reduced the number of items in the questionnaire to 94 and identified the following nine factors which contribute to consistency: text structure, general text features, information representation, lexical categories, meaning, user knowledge, text content, communicational attributes and physical attributes. A series of four experiments were conducted with 140 subjects using four different tasks and eight different interface types. The internal reliability of the questionnaire was 0.81, and the inter-rater reliability was 0.75. The instrument effectively identified all of the inconsistencies in interface designs. The instrument can be utilized both as an evaluation and as a design tool for Web-based interfaces.     

Perception-action icons: an interface design strategy for intermediate domains

OBJECTIVE: A prototype interface was developed to support decision making during tactical operations; a laboratory experiment was conducted to evaluate the capability of this interface to support a critical activity (i.e., obtaining the status of friendly combat resources). BACKGROUND: Effective interface design strategies have been developed for domains that have primarily law-driven (e.g., process control) or intent-driven (e.g., information retrieval) constraints. However, design strategies for intermediate domains in which both types of constraints are equally critical, such as military command and control, have not been explored as extensively. The principles of direct perception, direct manipulation, and perception-action loops were used to develop a hybrid interface design strategy ("perception-action icons") that was incorporated into the prototype interface. METHODS: A qualitative tactical simulation and an alternative interface (an experimental version of an existing U.S. Army interface) were developed. Participants used both interfaces to provide estimates of friendly combat resources for three different categories of information at three different echelon levels. RESULTS: The results were unequivocal, indicating that the interface with perception-action icons produced significantly better performance. CONCLUSION: The perception-action icon design strategy was very effective in this experimental context. The potential for this design strategy to be useful for other intermediate domains is explored. APPLICATION: Actual or potential applications of this research include both specific interface design strategies for military command and control and general interface design principles for intermediate work domains.     

Preference-Based Human Factors Knowledge Repository for Designing User Interfaces

This article proposes and describes a representational framework and a supporting tool environment for embedding and propagating human factors expertise into high level user interface design and development platforms. The proposed framework allows user interface designers to elicit, accommodate, and articulate user interface guidelines and results of experimental studies into reusable, evolutionary, and "living" design cases. The building blocks of the representational framework are a set of primitive constructs for consolidating the semantics of human factors knowledge into a design representation that characterizes the physical level of interaction. This is achieved through the development of a logical framework based on preference constraints and an initial set of preference and indifference expressions. The preference constraints provide a reasoning engine and a proof strategy for compiling a preference ordering of competing design alternatives and subsequently aggregating them into indifferent classes of design options per interaction element. The article also reports the implications of the proposed technique for user interface designers and the underlying requirements of user interface development platforms. Finally, the representational sufficiency of the proposed approach is discussed in the context of recent case studies aiming to consolidate human factors knowledge into a reusable repository supporting the ergonomic design of user interfaces in two example application domains, namely nonvisual hypermedia accessible to blind people and interpersonal communication aids for speech-motor-impaired and language-cognitive-impaired users.     

How consistent is your web design?

Previous studies have indicated that when interfaces are designed consistently with regards to structure and physical attributes, higher performance and lower error rates are achieved than when interfaces are designed inconsistently. The objective of the current study was to develop a methodology to measure all aspects of computer interface consistency and assess the impact of linguistic inconsistency of interface design on user performance. Based on the background literature, seven factors were identified as affecting overall consistency. Based on this identification, a structured questionnaire of 125 items was developed and a factor analysis was conducted which reduced the number of items in the questionnaire to 94 and identified the following nine factors which contribute to consistency: text structure, general text features, information representation, lexical categories, meaning, user knowledge, text content, communicational attributes and physical attributes. A series of four experiments were conducted with 140 subjects using four different tasks and eight different interface types. The internal reliability of the questionnaire was 0.81, and the inter-rater reliability was 0.75. The instrument effectively identified all of the inconsistencies in interface designs. The instrument can be utilized both as an evaluation and as a design tool for Web-based interfaces.     

基于1-Wire技术的无线传感器节点数据采集单元接口设计

针对无线传感器节点数据采集单元存在的接口扩展性不强的问题,设计了一种基于1-wire技术的数据采集单元接口.将多传感器直接或间接(通过接口转换器)通过1-Wire总线连接到节点的微控制器,使系统具有接口简单,节省I/O口,便于扩展和维护等优点.此外节点可装载的传感器数量增多,使网络要求的节点数减少,降低了网络的成本以及设计和维护难度.以1-Wire式温度传感器DS18820为例,介绍了1-Wire总线接口的软硬件设计方案,并给出了测试结果.设计思想和方法也适用于其他1-Wire器件,对无线传感器节点数据采集单元的接口设计具有帮助和促进作用.     

IPv6信息家电控制界面的自动生成技术

针对基于IPv6的UPnP家庭网络，结合IPv6家庭网关在外部网络与IPv6家庭网络交互中的重要作用，设计并实现了IPv6信息家电控制界面的自动生成方案和相应的集中控制机制，应用于外网用户对基于IPv6的UPnP家庭网络中信息家电的远程控制。IPv6家庭网关根据模板文件，为基于IPv6的UPnP家庭网络中的每台信息家电自动生成统一风格的控制界面；IPv6家庭网关接收到外网用户通过控制界面提交的控制命令后，根据SOAP协议集中控制信息家电。该文的研究完善了UPnP家庭网关标准(Internet Gateway Device V1.0)。     

基于决策树和链接相似的Deep Web查询接口判定*

针对现有Deep Web查询接口判定方法误判较多、无法有效区分搜索引擎类接口的不足,提出了基于决策树和链接相似的Deep Web查询接口判定方法。该方法利用信息增益率选取重要属性,并构建决策树对接口表单进行预判定,识别特征较为明显的接口;然后利用基于链接相似的判定方法对未识别出的接口进行二次判定,准确识别真正查询接口,排除搜索引擎类接口。结果表明,该方法能有效区分搜索引擎类接口,提高了分类的准确率和查全率。     

A comparison of simple hierarchy and grid metaphors for option layouts on small-size screens

Modern, technologically driven society is characterized by an increase in the rate of mobile device use and an increase in the extent to which these devices are used for more complex tasks than search for phone numbers. While direct consequences of screen-size reduction on task performance are well known, data are lacking on the impact of layout of multiple options in a complex task environment. In this paper we describe the results of an end-user study in which we compared two basic interface designs for the layout of multiple options: a simple hierarchy and a single layer grid. These two designs were presented to users on two screen sizes; a larger size approximating the size of a standard laptop or desktop screen and a smaller size approximating the size of a PDA screen. This study illustrates that while task performance in accessing information was superior using the grid interface rather than the simple hierarchy interface, users preferred the simple hierarchy interface. Even as the complexity of the task increased, the physical size of the screen had a significantly bigger impact on task performance than did the task complexity. These findings indicate that the grid layout should be used when task performance is of the paramount concern and the complexity of choices is not expected to be large. When user preference/satisfaction is more important than task performance the appeal of the simple hierarchy layout may supersede the cost in performance it entails.     

A comparative analysis of information acquisition mechanisms fordiscrete resource allocation

Discrete resource allocation problems (RAPs) deal with making decisions that result in an optimal deployment of indivisible scarce resources among a group of agents so as to achieve the maximum aggregate utility. One prerequisite for solving the discrete RAP is that the decision maker be cognizant of the individual utility functions for the agents involved. When an agent's preference information is not available, the decision maker needs to gather such information through an inquiry process. The information acquisition process entails its own costs such as communication costs and computation costs. In this paper, three different information inference mechanisms merging, ranking, and entropy - are proposed and compared for the information acquisition process in the discrete RAP. It is found that the merging mechanism results in the least computation costs for the decision maker while the entropy mechanism incurs the least communication costs     

网络计算环境下QoS偏好的处理策略及其应用

为保障用户按需服务的需求,较深入研究了用户QoS需求偏好信息的处理策略。基于多属性决策理论,首先提出了QoS偏好信息的三种描述方式：序关系向量、AHP矩阵和语言评价集合,并给出了相应的转化和计算方法。随后,把QoS偏好的处理策略应用于服务选择,提出一个相对最优服务的确定方法,该方法可以反映用户的QoS偏好,满足用户按需服务的需求。具体实例表明所提出的QoS偏好信息的处理策略是切实可行的。     

HIISC:一种高效灵活的医学影像集成服务组件

医院有不少的遗留设备与软件系统,它们并未提供标准接口、缺乏相关接口资料或者根本未提供接口,给医疗信息集成带来了极大的挑战.本文设计了一种商高效、灵活的医学影像集成服务组件应用到医院信息系统中,专门解决异构系统的医学影像集成问题,实现了真正意义上的异构系统间的有效整合.     

MAGDM Linear-Programming Models With Distinct Uncertain Preference Structures

Group decision making with preference information on alternatives is an interesting and important research topic which has been receiving more and more attention in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to investigate multiple-attribute group decision-making (MAGDM) problems with distinct uncertain preference structures. We develop some linear-programming models for dealing with the MAGDM problems, where the information about attribute weights is incomplete, and the decision makers have their preferences on alternatives. The provided preference information can be represented in the following three distinct uncertain preference structures: 1) interval utility values; 2) interval fuzzy preference relations; and 3) interval multiplicative preference relations. We first establish some linear-programming models based on decision matrix and each of the distinct uncertain preference structures and, then, develop some linear-programming models to integrate all three structures of subjective uncertain preference information provided by the decision makers and the objective information depicted in the decision matrix. Furthermore, we propose a simple and straightforward approach in ranking and selecting the given alternatives. It is worth pointing out that the developed models can also be used to deal with the situations where the three distinct uncertain preference structures are reduced to the traditional ones, i.e., utility values, fuzzy preference relations, and multiplicative preference relations. Finally, we use a practical example to illustrate in detail the calculation process of the developed approach.      

The importance of being beautiful [user interfaces]

The paper presents some tools, techniques and concepts to optimize user interfaces and considers some World Wide Web home pages as examples of user interface design. The importance of being beautiful has implications for how we evaluate the usability of our designs. The paper discusses how user preference measures will be relatively more important than traditional measures such as tasks per minute     

Learning and retention with a menu and a command line interface

Within the context of a computer-based tutoring system, 36 participants initially learned sequences of commands to satisfy common file, directory, and process manipulations with UNIX¹. Each of three task objectives required correctly entering four lines of command sequences with one of three different interface conditions. Learning occurred with a menu interface (recognition), a command line interface (recall), and a combination menu-command line interface (recognition-plus-recall). The criterion of task mastery was three successive help-free and error-free iterations through an interface condition. After a four-week interval with no interface exposure, the task was repeated. The results showed that performance on both menu and command line interfaces, as evidenced by requests for help, error frequency, and trials to task mastery, required relearning after the period of disuse. The command line interface was generally associated with higher levels of performance than the menu interface, especially during retention testing. The components of the combined interface interacted, but transfer of learning between them was incomplete.