Ecological Display Research Articles

Exploring the Performance Consequences of Target Prevalence and Ecological Display Designs When Using an Automated Aid

Exploring the Performance Consequences of Target Prevalence and Ecological Display Designs When Using an Automated Aid

Discussion on Education and Teaching of Natural Ecological Color Design Based on Virtual Environment Construction

As one of the elements of natural ecological display design, color is particularly important for the virtual construction of natural ecology. However, how to reflect the ecological nature in the natural ecological display color design is a problem worthy of thinking. This paper focuses on the ecological nature of display color design. Taking the ecological nature of color design of Beijing Natural Ecological Exhibition Hall as an example, it starts from the definition of ecological nature of display color design to the embodiment of ecological nature of color design. Then this paper focuses on the ecological expression of display color design with the theme of nature. Finally, this paper discusses the teaching method of natural ecological color design education, and puts forward the teaching method guided by the virtual construction process of natural ecology and the natural color design method. Experimental results show that the method can improve the effectiveness of color design education.

Application of ecological interface design in nuclear power plant (NPP) operator support system

Abstract Most publications confirm that an ecological interface is a very efficient tool to supporting operators in recognition of complex and unusual situations and in decision-making. The present article describes the experience of implementation of an ecological interface concept for visualization of material balance in a drum separator of RBMK-type NPPs. Functional analysis of the domain area was carried out and revealed main factors and contributors to the balance. The proposed ecological display was designed to facilitate execution of the most complicated cognitive operations, such as comparison, summarizing, prediction, etc. The experimental series carried out at NPPs demonstrated considerable reduction of operators' mental load, time of reaction, and error rate.

MODEL FOR THE FORMATION OF ECOLOGICAL CULTURE OF THE MILITARY HIGH SCHOOL CADETS IN THE MUSEUM EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT IN THE PROCESS OF RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

The article covers the formation of ecological culture of military high school cadets in the process of the museum’s research activities. The author defines the main mechanism of ecological culture formation, being characteristic of military high school cadets, and believes that the development of the cadets’ ecological culture, while they are engaged in the research process, will be effective, provided an innovative research context has been set up within the educational activities scope of the high school’s museum. For this purpose, the author suggests both considering the formation of ecological culture of military high school cadets in the process of the museum’s research activities and revealing certain links between the following components: socio-cultural environment and the museum’s one, the cadets’ research activities and the setting up of the ecological display at the museum, which comprises the contents of the museum teaching science. The author considers this model to be efficient for the purposes of the formation of the cadets’ ecological culture within the museum educational environment, as it has been proved efficient at a civil high school.

Ecological Displays, Information Integration, and Display Format

We investigated factors in the design of small displays designed using the ecological interface design (EID) methodology. Method of information integration and level of consistency of object visual form were varied across displays, which were designed to allow control of a manual single-lens reflex camera. Novice camera users performed real photography tasks of variable difficulty using displays in which information was either separated (i.e., shown on different screens), integrated on the basis of a system function and process-oriented work domain model (the abstraction hierarchy), or integrated on the basis of a control task model (the decision ladder). The visual form of the objects used for camera control was also varied: Objects were designed either using similar graphical codes or incorporating multiple graphical codes. Results show improved performance with integrated displays compared with separated displays. Importantly, integration was advantageous for complex tasks. Results also revealed that system integrated displays supported overall performance better than task integrated displays. Additionally, using consistent graphical codes to create the objects provided performance advantages, especially for more difficult tasks. Recommendations for the design of EID display objects as well as methods for integrating information across multiple EID displays are provided.

Visual Search in Ecological and Non-Ecological Displays: Evidence for a Non-Monotonic Effect of Complexity on Performance

Considerable research has been carried out on visual search, with single or multiple targets. However, most studies have used artificial stimuli with low ecological validity. In addition, little is known about the effects of target complexity and expertise in visual search. Here, we investigate visual search in three conditions of complexity (detecting a king, detecting a check, and detecting a checkmate) with chess players of two levels of expertise (novices and club players). Results show that the influence of target complexity depends on level of structure of the visual display. Different functional relationships were found between artificial (random chess positions) and ecologically valid (game positions) stimuli: With artificial, but not with ecologically valid stimuli, a “pop out” effect was present when a target was visually more complex than distractors but could be captured by a memory chunk. This suggests that caution should be exercised when generalising from experiments using artificial stimuli with low ecological validity to real-life stimuli.

A Study on Ecological Interface Design for Navy Ship's Radar Display

Objective: The aim of this study is developing the navigation radar display of navy ship with ecological interface design (EID) framework. Background: Navy ship radar operator must perform navigation support tasks by monitoring the complex and diverse information presented on the radar display. Current radar display is limited in effective navigation aid and response to an unusual state immediately. It is necessary to develop an effective radar display. Method: Ten navy radar operators performed a series of trials in a low-fidelity radar simulation in which they attempted to solve the problems of current navigation situation. Results: The result demonstrated that the ecological interface"s performance was better than the existing radar display on performance time and subjective mental workload. Conclusion: This study expand EID study field to navy ship radar display and confirm ecological display is better than existing radar display in performance time, subjective mental work load. Application: The result of this study may help to improve navy ship navigation radar display currently in use.

Ecological Interface Design in the Nuclear Domain: An Empirical Evaluation of Ecological Displays for the Secondary Subsystems of a Boiling Water Reactor Plant Simulator

Laboratory studies have shown that ecological interfaces can enhance operator performance in process control. However, limited verification and validation studies in representative settings are impeding the adoption of the Ecological Interface Design (EID) framework in the nuclear domain. A companion article presents an application of EID to the secondary side of a boiling water reactor plant simulator, demonstrating that the framework can lead to display features and verification criteria relevant to supporting operators in both anticipated and unanticipated situations. This article presents an empirical study as a first step towards the validation of EID in the nuclear domain. The results suggest that ecological displays have a marked advantage in supporting operator performance during monitoring for unanticipated events as compared to mimic-based displays. The ecological displays did not support operator performance differently for other types of tasks. This study provides supporting or validation evidence that EID is effective at a scale and level of complexity that is representative of nuclear power plant operations. The implications for introducing ecological displays into NPP control rooms are discussed.

Clinical information displays to improve ICU outcomes

Purpose In a previous study, we compared a prototype ecological display (ED) that represented physiological data in a structured pictorial format with two bar graph displays [J.A. Effken, Improving clinical decision making through ecological interfaces, Ecol. Psych. 18 (2006) 283–318]. In ED and the first bar graph display, data were grouped hierarchically based on a cognitive work analysis (CWA); in the second bar graph display they were grouped as usually collected. Treatment efficiency (i.e., percentage of time seven variables in the CWA model were in target range) improved similarly with the two displays incorporating the CWA order for intensive care unit (ICU) residents, but not for novice ICU nurses. Hypothesized reasons for this result included: insufficient practice with novel displays; use of identical histories across displays; insufficient clinical knowledge; and the variables used in the efficiency analysis, which included only one of ED's four integrated design elements. In the current study we tested these hypotheses. Methods We asked ICU nurses assigned to three knowledge groups based on intensive care and hemodynamic monitoring pretests to identify and treat oxygenation problems presented via ED and the first bar graph display (BGD) in an experimental laboratory simulation. We measured the impact of display, clinical scenario, data level, knowledge, presentation order, and practice extent on event recognition, treatment efficiency, cognitive workload, and user satisfaction. Results The two displays produced little difference in recognition speed or overall cognitive workload, but user satisfaction was greater with ED. When 12 variables were included in the analysis, treatment efficiency improved with ED; when only 7 were measured, BGD prevailed. The results suggest benefits for the kind of synthesis provided in ED, but also a potential limitation. If too many different pictorial formats are used in a display, detecting critical events may be more difficult.

Robust multi-robot formations under human supervision and control

There is considerable interest in real-world formation-maintenance tasks, where robots move together while maintaining a geometric shape. This interest is motivated by promise of robustly and efficiently moving multiple robots along a path, guided by a human operator. This paper presents a comprehensive set of techniques that fulfill this promise: (i) a novel method for fusing open- and closed- loop controllers, for robust formation-maintenance; (ii) an ecological display, allowing a human operator to monitor and guide robots, while improving their performance and reducing the failure rate; and (iii) a set of methods for interacting with the formation in the case of a disconnect in the formation. We evaluate each of these contributions in extensive experiments, including 25 human operators. We show significant improvements in performance (in terms of movement time), robustness (both in number of failures, as well as failure rate), and consistency between operators.

Extending Ecological Interface Design principles: A manufacturing case study

Identifying information requirements is a well-understood activity, but the practice of converting data into visual form based on these requirements is less defined. The Ecological Interface Design (EID) framework attempts to bridge this design gap by offering a set of visual design principles. While these principles supply high-level goals to be achieved by the display, they do not describe the design process per se. EID case studies tend to report the work domain analysis, the design solution and the relationship between these two artefacts. Unfortunately, the presentation of a final solution does not reveal the rationale for decisions made during the design process. This, coupled with the complexity of the systems involved, can make it difficult to transfer design knowledge to other work domains. Here a methodology is proposed to guide the design of visual interface components that make up an ecological display. A structured approach for matching requirements to visual form based on work domain analysis, task analysis, scale matching, and data transformations is presented. A case study reveals the rationale behind the redesign of a process control health reporting system using this methodology.

Formalizing Display Development in Ecological Interface Design: The form Comparison Matrix

Combined, the Ecological Interface Design (EID) and Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) frameworks foster the development of complex system interfaces that capitalize on human perceptive capabilities to support skill-, rule- and knowledge-based control behavior. While numerous examples of compelling ecological display designs exist, many practitioners have experienced difficulty in transforming the nested behavior-shaping constraints identified by CWA into novel EID display forms. We introduce the Form Comparison Matrix (FCM) as a tool to further structure EID design efforts by leveraging the outputs of CWA activities. Drawing upon the familiar DURESS mass balance display form as an example, we discuss typical challenges of ecological display development and present a practical application of the FCM to support evaluation of competing ecological design alternatives. This article is intended to stimulate discussion of methods and tools for further formalizing EID processes and to serve as a methodological example for future EID practitioners.

Color Coding of Control Room Displays: The Psychocartography of Visual Layering Effects

To evaluate which of three color coding methods (monochrome, maximally discriminable, and visual layering) used to code four types of control room display format (bars, tables, trend, mimic) was superior in two classes of task (search, compare). It has recently been shown that color coding of visual layers, as used in cartography, may be used to color code any type of information display, but this has yet to be fully evaluated. Twenty-four people took part in a 2 (task) x 3 (coding method) x 4 (format) wholly repeated measures design. The dependent variables assessed were target location reaction time, error rates, workload, and subjective feedback. Overall, the visual layers coding method produced significantly faster reaction times than did the maximally discriminable and the monochrome methods for both the search and compare tasks. No significant difference in errors was observed between conditions for either task type. Significantly less perceived workload was experienced with the visual layers coding method, which was also rated more highly than the other coding methods on a 14-item visual display quality questionnaire. The visual layers coding method is superior to other color coding methods for control room displays when the method supports the user's task. The visual layers color coding method has wide applicability to the design of all complex information displays utilizing color coding, from the most maplike (e.g., air traffic control) to the most abstract (e.g., abstracted ecological display).

From Analysis to Design: Wda for the Petrochemical Industry

When developing ecological displays for a large project, having consistent techniques for analysis and design are very important. This paper reports on six techniques that were used on a project for Syncrude Canada. The project used work domain analysis to develop ecological display concepts. At various points in the project, a total of eight analyst designers were involved. The six techniques reported here were used to maintain consistent results across the design team and to provide a systematic approach to move from a work domain analysis to a design on a large safety-critical project.

Task Analysis Does Count in Making the Abstraction Hierarchy Concrete: Evidence from a Pressurized Water Reactor Situation

Proponents of the Ecological Interface Design framework have recently highlighted two important assumptions: (a) the Abstraction Hierarchy (AH) would only be a representation of the work domain, not a task representation; (b) the development of an ecological display that presents information at different levels of abstraction should be based on a full implementation of the Abstraction Hierarchy. However, as revealed by our field studies, these assumptions might dismiss the role of task analysis in making the AH concrete. First, the presentation of mass balance and energy balance in an ecological display is important because these kinds of equilibrium constitute what the operator should maintain. Second, the use of an AH and its implementation in an effective work situation will probably be state-specific. Important parameters to be monitored, mass and energy balances that should be assessed, change as a function of the overall state of the process.

Exploring Databases for Taste or Inspiration with Interactive Multi-Dimensional Scaling

The verbal interfaces of current databases are not well suited for searches based on taste, intuition, or complexity (such as selecting a wine, a colour, or a product with many attributes). MDS-Interactive is a visual interaction method, based on multidimensional scaling (MDS), where people manipulate a set of sample objects to navigate through a large collection. In the development of MDS-Interactive, attention was given to the balance of constraint and freedom, of inspiration and information, of verbal and visual interaction styles. We discuss the basic ideas of our technique, its relation to ecological display theory, and experiences with a prototype interface for a consumer recommendation service.

Scanning Patterns with Ecological Displays when Abstraction Levels are Separated

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.

Brain Imaging Studies of Human Interaction with Well- and Poorly-Mapped Configural Displays

In this paper we report the first application of the Steady State Probe Topography (SSPT) neuroimaging technique (Silberstein, 1992) to the design of configural displays for continuous monitoring tasks. Two studies replicated and extended the performance results of Buttigieg and Sanderson (1991) in which high-level system constraints that subjects had to monitor were either well-mapped or poorly mapped to visual emergent features of digital, bargraph, or shape displays. SSPT results for poorly-mapped displays all showed prefrontal excitation indicative of high mental workload and lateralization of excitation, regardless of the kind of display. However, SSPT results for well-mapped displays showed less prefrontal involvement the more directly the constraint being monitored was represented in the display. The display supporting best performance showed no prefrontal involvement at all, but instead involvement of areas associated with form perception and visual attention, indicating a low-workload perceptual strategy. We interpret these results in the context of recent work on ecological display design and indicate future directions for neuroimaging studies of human interaction with dynamic systems.

Use of Nontraditional Flight Displays for the Reduction of Central Visual Overload in the Cockpit

The use of nontraditional flight displays to reduce visual overload in the cockpit was investigated in a dual-task paradigm. Three flight displays (central, peripheral, and ecological) were used between subjects for the primary tasks, and the type of secondary task (object identification or motion judgment) and the presentation of the location of the task in the visual field (central or peripheral) were manipulated with groups. The two visual-spatial tasks were time-shared to study the possibility of a compatibility mapping between task type and task location. The ecological display was found to allow for the most efficient time-sharing.