My blog has been included in this article about social media activities of members of the Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors. Thank you Tony!

Once you have finished checking out the links from the article, here are some other things I would like to recommend;

• Blog: Farnham Street for everything about mental models and thinking.
  
• Twitter: @userfocus for links to a variety of articles about usability.
• Podcast: User Experience Podcast for discussions about a range of user experience topics, including driver safety, human transit and most recently airport design.
  

Cadillac have released details of a new touch screen interface system, the ‘Cadillac User Experience’ (or CUE), which will be provided in their luxury line of cars from 2012 for entertainment, navigation and communication. Essentially, the CUE seems to offer the same sort of functionality as ‘MyFord Touch’ (which you can read about in my previous blog post here).

However, in terms of interacting with the touch screen, one of the main differences between the two systems is that the CUE makes use of haptic technology:

“CUE gives you tactile feedback on the touch screen and certain controls. Buttons pulse when pressed to affirm that the command is being carried out, allowing you to make your selection without taking your eyes off the road.”

‘Haptics’ is the science and physiology of the sense of touch, and haptic technology is used to render the touch and feel of virtual objects (like controls displayed on a touchscreen) and provide feedback. There are two types of feedback that can be provided; kinesthetic and tactile.

• Kinesthetic feedback relates to information about an object’s size, shape and position in space.
• Tactile feedback relates to information about the texture, temperature and vibration of an object.

By using tactile feedback on a touchscreen, in conjunction with audio and visual cues, you can realistically simulate using a physical control. The additional richness of the information sent to the brain can theoretically help to reduce errors and task time, thereby improving performance.

As suggested on the Cadillac website, the CUE might improve safety by allowing drivers to keep their eyes on the road whilst operating the touchscreen controls.

I think further improvements could be made by incorporating electrostatic technology, like that used by Senseg, to create the sensation of different textures on the surface of a touchscreen. This technology could be used to create virtual edges to the controls on a touchscreen display, thereby helping drivers locate controls whilst keeping their eyes on the road.

This video of Rory Sutherland (Ogilvy) from Wired 11 is about how problems can arise when engineers fail to consider psychology when designing products and services. Sutherland opens with an example of a typical warning from a supermarket self-service checkout; ‘Unexpected item in the bagging area’.

“It’s hard to think of a less human-friendly way to actually address the problem. It does practically nothing, it explains nothing, and actually just fills you with terror.”

He goes on to describe how the sweet spot in design is between technology, psychology and economics, and that considering psychology should come first.

“If you accept, that all these things; engineering, mathematics, economics, technology are to some extent subordinate to human psychology, then I think we have a great future ahead of us.
If you think that human psychology, or human nature, should be subordinated to them, then we have a problem.”

As a human factors engineer, I would go further and say that all aspects of the user, the task and the environment need to be considered in order to make a successful design. Overall I found it a really interesting talk, with some good examples of bias and heuristics.

I particularly liked one of the key principles of the site redesign:

Simplify: Get straight to the point and tell people if it’s going to rain.

I also liked the improved scale for the map time-line.

via howiechang:

via ckalima:

An awesome post by Melanie Seyer, the lead designer of the BBC Weather product within BBC Future Media, outlining the process and thinking behind their mid-November refresh.

So far in this series I have discussed the use of SketchUp in the ergonomic assessment of the space provided for equipment, reach to equipment and viewing angles to displays. But as well as designing for the equipment on top of a work station, it is important to remember what goes on underneath the work surface.

The space underneath the work surface should be completely clear of obstructions, so that a person sat at a work station has plenty of space to change their posture comfortably. Also, a person should be able to sit with their knees underneath the work surface and not have to lean over to support themselves on their forearms, or when trying to reach equipment. This is because having to lean over can put extra pressure on the person’s back, potentially leading to the development of musculoskeletal injuries.

Ideally the space underneath a work surface should be:

• At least 650mm high (remembering that the top of the work surface should be 720mm high).
• At least 600mm wide (but preferably 1000mm wide).
• At least 600mm deep.

[All as per ISO Standard 9241-5:1999 Section NA6].

However, I’ve often found that the width and depth requirements are rarely achievable because of the need for brackets to support the work surface. In this case, an assessment can be made using a profile of the minimum leg space [as defined in ISO standard 9241-5:1999 Figure NA1].

This assessment can be made using my SketchUp model called ‘Minimum Leg Space for Workstations’.

By lining the model up with the front edge of the workstation, and then using a ‘section cut’ through the model, you can quickly and easily find potential infringements.

My next post on SketchUp Ergonomics will summarise the models I have presented so far, and show some more examples of the SketchUp models I have made in the course of my work as a human factors engineer.

Thursday 10th November saw the 7th annual World Usability Day, and the UK UPA marked the occasion by staging an event in London in association with Thomson Reuters. Three presentations were given on the theme ‘Education: Design for social change’.

I most enjoyed the first presentation by SapientNitro about the Electronic Offering System developed to support organ donor facilitators. The facilitators face incredible pressure to match up donated organs with potential recipients on the waiting list anywhere in the country. Time is critical, especially when you consider that a heart will last just four hours once removed from the donor. However, the old process was slow, with up to 20 phone calls needed to be made for each organ.

Bradley Gamage described how the interface for the new computer-based system was developed in workshops with the facilitators, and they were literally given a blank sheet of paper to put down their ideas. It would have been nice if there had been time to hear more about how the system was designed and developed, and how they solved the problems outlined at the start of the presentation.

However, you can see a screenshot of part of the interface here.

In my previous SketchUp Ergonomics post, I described how the assessment of a monitor location needs to take into account the user’s eye position and Line of Sight (LOS), and I modelled a viewing cone for a person sat in an erect posture.

The problem with just modelling a single viewing cone is that people don’t tend to sit bolt upright the whole time, especially not in control rooms; it’s common for people to lean back in a relaxed posture whilst monitoring things and not operating controls.

The design of the control room should factor in the range of postures that people might adopt, making sure that the monitors remain within comfortable view.

Four postures that are typically adopted in control rooms have been defined below [see ISO standard 11064-4 (2004) Section 5.4.2]:

• Bent forward – monitoring at a high level of attention.
• Sat erect – typing or operating controls.
• Reclined – monitoring.
• Relaxed – monitoring for long periods of time.

Each posture has a different LOS angle, and different horizontal and vertical eye positions.

All of this can be assessed easily using my SketchUp model called ‘Viewing Cone by Posture’.

By lining up the guides in the model with the front edge of the desk and the floor, you can easily check if a monitor is within comfortable view (or ‘primary display zone’) for a person in each of the postures defined above. The ‘primary display zone’ is defined as a cone extending 40° above and below LOS, and 35° left and right of LOS [as per ISO standard 11064-4 (2004) Section 5.2.2].

My model features a set of cones which represent the primary display zones for 5th percentile female (the purple set) and a 95th percentile male (the blue set).

My next SketchUp Ergonomics post will present a model which helps you to assess the clearance space underneath a work surface.

This video of a talk presented at Wired 11 by Aza Raskin (Massive Health) is about how the design of healthcare interventions could benefit from improved feedback.

During the talk, Aza Raskin gives a live demonstration of the feedback provided by a blood glucose monitor typically used by diabetics. He pricks his finger, tests his blood, and the device gives a reading: the number ‘101’…

“What the hell does that mean? This thing determines if you live or die, it’s state of the art, and it doesn’t even tell you if it [the reading] was good or not!”

Without training or experience, the reading seems abstract and meaningless. I think the feedback provided by the blood glucose monitor should:

• diagnose - let the person know if a problem has been identified,
• explain the problem - with a clear message,
• advise - ultimately provide an indication of what action needs to be taken, in a timely and relevant way.

Aza Raskin goes on to discuss that the problem being tackled at Massive Health is “Can we make products about people’s health that they love to use?”. He proposes that because people will change their behaviour in response to feedback, more effective healthcare interventions can be designed that combat the negative effects of ‘time discounting’. Massive Health have recently launched a new iPhone app called ‘The Eatery’ which is designed to help improve your eating habits. Find out more here.