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Memory Principles
Our long‐term memory is vulnerable.
Why?
Because we forget certain things or sometimes because we
remember other things too well and persist in doing them
when we should not.
The final three principles address different aspects of these
memory processes.
11. Replace memory with visual information: knowledge in the
world.
People ought not be required to retain important information
solely in working memory or retrieve it from long‐term memory.
Of course, sometimes too much knowledge in the world can
lead to clutter problems, and systems designed to rely on
knowledge in the head are not necessarily bad.
For example, in using computer systems, experts might like to
be able to retrieve information by direct commands (knowledge
In the head) rather than stepping through a menu (knowledge
in the world).
Good design must balance the two .kinds of knowledge. One
specific example of replacing memory with perception becomes
a principle in its own right, which defines the importance of
predictive aiding.
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12. Principle of predictive aiding.
Humans are not very good at predicting the future. In large
part this limitation results because prediction is a difficult
cognitive task, depending heavily on working memory.
We need to think about current conditions, possible future
conditions, and then "run" the mental model by which the
former may generate the latter.
When our mental resources are consumed with other tasks,
prediction falls apart and we become reactive, responding to
what has already happened, rather than proactive, responding
in anticipation of the future.
Since proactive behavior is usually more effective than reactive,
it stands to reason that displays that can explicitly predict what
will happen are generally quite effective in supporting human
performance. A predictive display removes a resource‐
demanding cognitive task and replaces it with a simpler
perceptual one.
13. Principle of consistency.
When our long term‐memory works too well, it may
continue to trigger actions that are no longer appropriate,
and this a pretty instinctive and automatic human tendency.
Because there is no way to avoid this, good designers
should try to accept it and design display in a manner that is
consistent with other displays that the user may be
perceiving concurrently (e.g., a user alternating between
two computer systems) or may have perceived in the recent
past.
Thus, for example, color coding should be consistent across
a set of displays so that red always means the same thing.
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LABELS
Labels may also be thought of as displays, although
they are generally static and unchanging features for
the user.
Their purpose is to unambiguously signal the identity
or function of an entity, such as a control, display,
piece of equipment, entry on a form, or other system
component.
Labels are usually presented as print but may
sometimes take the form of icons.
There are four key design criteria for labels, whether presented in
words or pictures, are visibility, discriminability, meaningfulness,
and location.
1. Visibility/legibility.
This criterion (P1) relates directly back to issues of contrast
sensitivity. Stroke width of lines (in text or icon~) and
contrast from background must be sufficient so that the
shapes can be discerned under the poorest expected
viewing conditions. This entails some concern for the shape
of icons, an aspect delivered at low spatial frequencies.
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2. Discriminability (P5).
This criterion dictates that any feature that is necessary to
discriminate a given label from an alternative that may be
inferred by the user to exist in that context is clearly and
prominently highlighted. We noted that confusability increases
with the ratio of shared distinct features between potential
labels. So, two figure legends that show a large amount of
identical (and perhaps redundant) text are more confusable than
two in which this redundancy is deleted (Fig. 8.2d).
3. Meaningfulness.
Even if a word or icon is legible and not confusable, this is no
guarantee that it triggers the appropriate meaning in the mind of
the viewer when it is perceived.
Too often icons, words, that are highly meaningful In the mind of
the designer, who has certain expectations of the mindset that the
user should have when the label is encountered, are next to
meaningless in the mind of some proportion of the actual users.
Icons may well be advantageous where the word labels may be read
by those who are not fluent in the language (e.g., international
highway symbols) and sometimes under degraded viewing
conditions; thus, the redundancy gain (P4) that such icons provide is
usually of value.
But the use of icons alone appears to carry an unnecessary risk
when comprehension of the label is important. The same can be
said for abbreviations.
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4. Location.
One final obvious but sometimes overlooked feature of labels:
they should be physically close to and unambiguously associated
with the entity that they label,
thereby adhering to the proximity compatibility principle (P9).
Note how the placement of labels in Figure 8.6 violates this.
While the display indicating temperature is closest to the
temperature label, the converse cannot be said. That is, the
temperature label is just as close to the speed display as it is to
the temperature display. If our discussion concerned the location
of buttons, not displays and labels, then the issue would be one
of stimulus‐response compatibility.
MULTIPLE DISPLAYS
Many real‐world systems are complex.
The typical nuclear reactor may have at least 35 variables that are
considered critical for its operation, while the aircraft is assumed to
have at least seven that are important for monitoring in even the
most routine operations.
Hence, an important issue in designing multiple displays is to decide
where they go, that is, what should be the layout of the multiple
displays (Wickens et aI., 1997).
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Display Layout
In many work environments, the designer may be able to define a
primary visual area (PVA).
For the seated user, this maybe the region of forward view as the head
and eyes look straight forward.
For the vehicle operator, it may be the direction of view of the highway
(or runway in an aircraft approach).
Defining this region (or point in space) of the PVA is critical because the
first of six guidelines of display layout, frequency of use, dictates that
frequently used displays should be adjacent to the PVA.
This makes sense because their frequent access dictates "a need to
"minimize the travel time" between them and the PYA (P8). Note that
sometimes a very frequently used display can itself define the PVA.
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Closely related to frequency of use is importance of use, which
dictates that important information, even if it may not be
frequently used, be displayed so that attention will be captured
when it is presented.
While displaying such information within the PVA often
accomplishes this, other techniques, such as auditory alerts
coupled with guidance of where to look to access the
information, can accomplish the same goal.
Display relatedness or sequence of use dictates that related
displays and those pairs that are often used in sequence should
be close together. (Indeed, these two features are∙ often
correlated.
Displays are often consulted sequentially because they are
related, like the commanded setting and actual setting of an
indicator.) This principle captures the key feature of the
proximity compatibility principle (P9) (Wickens & Carswell,
1995).
Consistency is related to both memory and attention.
If displays are always consistently laid out with the same
item positioned in the same spatial location, then our
memory of where things are serves us well, and memory
can easily and automatically guide selective attention to
find the items we need (P8, P13).
Stated in other terms, top‐down processing can guide the
search for information in the display.
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Organizational grouping is a guideline that can be used to
contrast the display array in Figure 8.9a with that in Figure 8.9b.
An organized, "clustered" display, such as that seen in Figure
8.9a, provides an aid that can easily guide visual attention to
particular groups as needed (P8), as long as all displays within a
group are functionally related and their relatedness is clearly
known and identified to the user.
If these guidelines are not followed, however, and unrelated
items belong to a common spatial cluster, then such organization
may actually be counterproductive (P9).
Two final guidelines of display layout are related to stimulus‐
response compatibility, which dictates that displays should be
close to their associated controls, and clutter avoidance, which
dictates that there should ideally be a minimum visual angle
between all pairs of displays.
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Configural Displays
Sometimes, multiple displays of single variables can be arrayed in
both space and format so that certain properties relevant to the
monitoring task will emerge from the combination of values on∙ the
individual variables.
An example of a configural display, is the safety‐parameter
monitoring display developed by Woods, Wise, and Hanes (1981) for
a nuclear power control room.
The eight critical safety parameters are configured in an octagon such
that when all are within their safe range, the easily perceivable
emergent feature of symmetry is observed.
Furthermore, if a parameter departs from its normal value as the
result of a failure, the distorted shape of the polygon can uniquely
signal the nature of the underlying fault.
Consider Figure 8.12, the proposed design for a boiler power
plant supervisory display (Rantanen & Gonzalez de Sather, 2003).
The 13 bar graphs, representing critical plant parameters,
configure to define an imagined straight line across the middle
of the display to signal the key state that all are operating within
normal range. In Figure 8.12, the "break" of the abnormal
parameter (FW Press) is visually obvious.
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Configural displays generally consider space and spatial relations
in arranging dynamic displayed elements.
Spatial proximity may help monitoring performance, and object
integration may also help, but neither is sufficient or necessary
to support information integration from emergent features.
The key to such support lies in emergent features that map to
task‐related variables.
The direct perception of these emergent features can replace
the more cognitively demanding computation of derived
quantities.
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