Cognitive networks as a guide to menu organization: An application in the automated cockpit

Abstract

Abstract When a menu-driven interface controls information in the domain of expertise of the end users, the difficulty that inexperienced users typically have in accessing the panels they seek can be reduced by making the menu organization consistent with the user's cognitive organization. A general tool for deriving a cognitive network is described and applied to the concepts displayed and controlled on the panels of an interface to a flight management system. The cognitive network was used to select the options that would appear on each panel of three different prototypes. The prototypes differed with respect to the amount of redundancy (extra pathways) between a set of dominating panels that appeared on a primary index page and the remaining panels. A fourth prototype was based on the recommendations of a design team rather than the cognitive network derived from a sample of pilots. Four pilots were assigned to each of the four prototypes, in a training session that required the pilots to find specific panels in order to answer questions pertaining to various scenarios. The group using the high redundancy organization that was based on the cognitive network took less time per trial than the three other groups.