Usability as a challenge in agricultural engineering

Abstract

One of the primary goals of research activities has always been to apply the newest potential results into practise. This is the case especially in engineering research. Recently, as productivity has gained importance as a quality measure for research, rapid application of the results has become even more important. Consequently, applicability has been lifted as a major criterion in the application for public funding thus promoting product development as an integrated part of research projects. No product (or research result) does have any impact if it is not taken into practical use. The end customers of research are supposed to take the developed products into active practical use. Without that phase all our efforts are put in vain. Usability is an important part of user acceptance. According to Nielsen (1993) system acceptability includes a social and a practical part. To be practically acceptable the product should be e.g. economical, compatible, reliable and useful. To be useful the product should be functionally suitable for the user’s tasks and usable. Usability includes easy learn ability, efficiency in use, remember ability, lack of errors in operation and subjective pleasure. In agricultural research there are distinct problems in usability when considering the phase oftaking the results into practical use. Of course, there are challenges also in the initial phase of research such as choosing research topics and later in the initial phase of product development. Usability, however, by far dictates user experience and thus decides if the product is taken into wide use or not. Consequently, MTT Agricultural Engineering Research has set usability and acceptability research as an important research topic. Usability in agricultural engineering is a complex issue since the context of use is variable. Mobile work is typical to agricultural producers.In this study, an example of usability evaluation is presented. Mobile work in the context of electronic control of precision combined drilling is evaluated. The research themes were:1. How great a challenge is usability in Precision Agriculture (PA)?- is it the cause for poor market penetration?2. Which usability evaluation methods are applicable to PA?- are there special issues in PA, or agricultural engineering generally, which limit the feasibilityof some methods?3. Which kind of usability problems can be detected with one selected method (heuristicevaluation)?- a demonstration of usability evaluation: the Human-Machine Interface (HMI) of a precisioncombined drillAccording to literature usability issues have not been a central issue in electronics development in agriculture. Poor experiences of unacceptable operation could be one reason for the customers not relying on new electronic control systems such as those of PA. There are multiple potential usability evaluation methods for agricultural engineering. The results from the case study performed show that heuristic evaluation is a suitable method for detecting design deficiencies in electronic control of mobile PA. To get a wider picture, further studies with other methods and applications should be done.