The Resource for Applied Cognitive and Systems Engineering (TRACE-SE): An Approach to Understanding the GAP

Abstract

Today's workplaces are complex organizations in which people connect to information, people, and the world through advanced technology. Accordingly, the nature of work evolves as the workplace adds technologies that challenge traditional skills and increase demands for highly specialized cognitive skills. Systems must therefore be designed to account for the cognitive strengths and limitations of users and support decision-based operations. Traditional systems engineering practices, however, frequently fail to expressly consider cognitive factors in design or consider them belatedly in the design cycle. As a result, systems are often designed that do not fully leverage the cognitive strengths of the human user or compensate for their limitations. Yet, embedding cognitive engineering methods into established systems engineering processes can be complex and expensive without tools to structure and support it. The Resource for Applied Cognitive Engineering and Systems Engineering (TRACE-SE) is a prototype web-based tool that can be used to begin bridging the gap that exists between cognitive and systems engineering. TRACE-SE provides the information needed to simultaneously support both cognitive and systems engineers in the design of user-centered systems that can produce superior decision making, improved safety, and greater operator productivity.