Scanning Patterns with Ecological Displays when Abstraction Levels are Separated

Abstract

Ecological interface design (EID) has shown success as an approach for interface design in the case of a process control microworld. However, in applying the EID approach to larger systems, questions of navigation and integration of abstract information arise. In this study, three ecological displays were developed for an industry-scale simulated power plant from an abstraction-decomposition model of that plant. In one of the displays, the abstraction levels were temporally separated. In the other two displays the abstraction levels were temporally integrated. When using the temporally separated display, subjects developed distinct temporal scanning patterns along the abstraction dimension. The nature and characteristic of the scanning patterns suggests that functional integration is an important design element when designing large ecological displays.

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