Reasoning about Information Needs vs. Information Conveyed: Computational Design,Evaluation and Consistency Analysis

Abstract

We previously developed a core representation for computationally comparing the information an operator needs to perform a task and the information provided by a user interface. This representation is based on information theoretic properties, thus it can be applied to a wide variety of work domains and information and display types. In prior work, we used this capability to dynamically and automatically reconfigure cockpit displays for military cockpits. More recently, we adapted this approach to the task of evaluating and critiquing display format designs for NASA's space operations. The representation and reasoning approach generalizes well to describing information types in procedural domains and the tool can analyze sets of display formats for sets of procedures, propose format improvements against a procedure set, project how changes to procedures will affect the suitability of existing formats, and project how changes to formats will improve or reduce their suitability for given procedures. Most recently, we have proposed extensions to evaluate and support “configuration consistency” of interfaces, within a system over time, across systems and even across vehicles and their associated work domains.