Seeing the woods for the trees: the problem of information inefficiency and information overload on operator performance

One of the recurring questions in designing dynamic control environments is whether providing more information leads to better operational decisions. The idea of having every piece of information is increasingly tempting (and in safety critical domains often mandatory) but has become a potential obstacle for designers and operators. The present research study examined this challenge of appropriate information design and usability within a railway control setting. A laboratory study was conducted to investigate the presentation of different levels of information (taken from data processing framework, Dadashi et al. in Ergonomics 57(3):387–402, 2014) and the association with, and potential prediction of, the performance of a human operator when completing a cognitively demanding problem-solving scenario within railways. Results indicated that presenting users only with information corresponding to their cognitive task, and in the absence of other, non task-relevant information, improves the performance of their problem-solving/alarm handling. Knowing the key features of interest to various agents (machine or human) and using the data processing framework to guide the optimal level of information required by each of these agents could potentially lead to safer and more usable designs.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-017-0451-1
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/14355558
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2017 Nastaran Dadashi et al.
• Authors:
  • Dadashi, Nastaran
  • Golightly, David
  • Sharples, Sarah
• Publication Date: 2017-11

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 561-570
• Serial:
  • Cognition, Technology & Work
  • Volume: 19
  • Issue Number: 4
  • Publisher: Springer Verlag
  • ISSN: 1435-5558
  • EISSN: 1435-5566
  • Serial URL: http://link.springer.com/journal/10111

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Communications and control personnel; Decision making; Decision support systems; Human information processing; Information management; Personnel performance; Problem solving; Railroad traffic control; Task analysis; User interfaces (Computer science)
• Uncontrolled Terms: Information overload; Usability
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Operations and Traffic Management; Railroads; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01657340
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jan 24 2018 9:20AM