Ecological Interface Design and Fault Management Performance: Long-Term Effects

1995 ◽  
Vol 39 (9) ◽  
pp. 496-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Christoffersen ◽  
Christopher N. Hunter ◽  
Kim J. Vicente
Keyword(s):  
Interface Design ◽  
Fault Management ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Management Performance ◽  
Industrial Systems ◽  
Ecological Interface Design ◽  
Fault Compensation ◽  
Ecological Interface ◽  
Hydraulic Process

This paper presents a six-month longitudinal study of the effects of ecological interface design (EID) on fault management performance. The research was conducted in the context of DURESS II, a real-time, interactive thermal-hydraulic process control simulation that was designed to be representative of industrial systems. Subjects' performance on two interfaces was compared, one based on the principles of EID and another based on a more traditional piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) format. Subjects were required to perform several control tasks, including startup, tuning, shutdown, and fault management on both routine and non-routine faults. At the end of the experiment, subjects used the interface that the other group had been using to control the system. The results indicate that there are substantial individual differences in performance, but that overall, the EID interface led to faster fault detection, more accurate fault diagnosis, and faster fault compensation.

Sensor Noise and Ecological Interface Design: Effects of Increasing Noise Magnitude on Operators' Performance

2005 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier St-Cyr ◽  
Kim J. Vicente
Keyword(s):  
Process Simulation ◽  
Interface Design ◽  
Sensor Noise ◽  
Ecological Interface Design ◽  
Design Effects ◽  
Emergent Features ◽  
Ecological Interface ◽  
Hydraulic Process ◽  
The Impact

We studied the impact of sensor noise on operators' performance using a display based on the Ecological Interface Design (EID) framework with a representative thermal-hydraulic process simulation. A previous study conducted by St-Cyr and Vicente (2004) showed no difference between EID and non-EID interfaces when the magnitude of sensor noise was randomly increased. In this paper, we describe a study that was designed to investigate the impact of gradually increasing the magnitude of sensor noise on EID versus non-EID interfaces. We hypothesized that as the magnitude of sensor noise increase, performance would worsen for both EID and non-EID participants. Our results suggest that increasing the magnitude of sensor noise does compromise both EID and non-EID interfaces. However, the EID group experienced a significantly larger decrease in performance. This may be explained by the fact that participants in the EID group had to deal with distorted emergent features.

Testing the Impact of Instrumentation Location and Reliability on Ecological Interface Design: Fault Diagnosis Performance

2000 ◽  
Vol 44 (22) ◽  
pp. 591-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dal Vernon C. Reising ◽  
Penelope M. Sanderson
Keyword(s):  
Interface Design ◽  
Diagnostic Performance ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Minimal Set ◽  
Ecological Interface Design ◽  
Operator Problem ◽  
Ecological Interface ◽  
The Impact

Ecological Interface Design (EID) is a recent philosophy for designing the visual displays of human-machine interfaces. An EID interface displays the higher-order relations and properties of a work domain so that adaptive operator problem solving is better supported for both normal and abnormal system conditions. Previous empirical studies of EID have assumed that the raw data required to derive and communicate the higher-order information would be available and reliable. The present research empirically evaluates the impact of having incomplete data on the effectiveness of an EID interface, compared to a more traditional piping and instrumentation interface. The research also addresses recent criticism directed at previous empirical studies of EID is also addressed. Results suggest that diagnostic performance using an ecological interface is compromised only when the interface is supported by a minimal set of instrumentation. However, an ecological interface supported by maximal instrumentation, on average, leads to the best diagnostic performance.

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