Situation Awareness Requirements Analysis

Smart system design is built on a foundation of scientific research and an in-depth understanding of the goals and situation awareness requirements of each user.

The innovative Goal-Directed Task Analysis (GDTA) that identifies user goals, the critical decisions individuals must make to achieve each goal and the SA needed for making those decisions. It is a proven methodology that has been applied to many successful systems and used for this project.

Situation Awareness-Oriented Design

Working from the SA Requirements Analysis, over 50 detailed design principles for supporting SA are applied that augment traditional design guidance. These design principles are based on a detailed cognitive model of human situation awareness, forming the foundation for linking situation awareness requirements to good system design.

System Measurement and Evaluation

(Top-level goal hierarchy shown)

This work was funded by the Global Mining Standards and Guidelines Group (GMSG). We would like to extend our thanks to Barrick Gold, Inc. and Teck

Resources Limited for their support throughout this project, and for providing access to mining sites and electric shovel operators.

From Theory To Practice: How Designing For Situation Awareness Can Transform Confusing,

Overloaded Shovel Operator Interfaces, Reduce Costs, And Increase Safety

E. Onal, C. Craddock, M.R. Endsley1

SA Technologies, Inc.3750 Palladian Village Dr. 600Marietta, GA 30066

Emrah@SATechnologies.com

A. ChapmanBarrick Gold Inc.

3700-161 Bay StreetToronto, Canada M5J 2S1

a.chapman@barrick.com1 U.S. Air Force

Significant Challenges for Situation Awareness (SA) in Mining Operations

NoiseDust, lightingPoor visibility Distributed operationsPiecemeal addition of technologiesIncreasing use of automationShiftwork, fatigueTechnology-centric design

Low SASafety and

Performance Suffers

“User friendly”, “Innovative” ,“Easy to understand” “Tabs make every screen easy to get at”

“One stop shopping in terms of info[] provided” “Higher level of safety achieved with information

available” “Greater awareness of possible hazards”

“How come nobody else has thought of this before?”

“When are we getting these new panels?”

1357

Measurement & EvaluationMeasure progressFocus design and development effortsHard proof for customers

Requirements DevelopmentGoal-directed task analysisIncrease software qualityImprove communication

Visual DesignStand out from competitionStay cutting-edge

BrandingExtend corporate identityFacilitate brand recognition

SA-Oriented DesignImprove operator performance

Reduce workload and errors

Design PrinciplesAutomation

Error ManagementAlerts and Statuses

Information Visualization

Style GuideCommonalityConsistencyReuse

Competing Technologies

Competing Design Concepts

Modeling Rapid Prototyping

User-inthe-loop

Simulation Testing

FieldTesting

FinalDesign

Measuring system effectiveness, as well as evaluating all aspects of system design, and its effect on information processing and job performance, is critical to a project’s success. Cognitive walkthroughs were used in the evaluation of these Shovel Operator UI designs.We recommend further testing and SA evaluation of this design with a larger user base performing simulated oroperational tasks to validate the findings. Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) provides a sensitive and diagnostic measure of SA that can be used to evaluate user interface technologies, display concepts, and training programs. SAGAT has been carefully validated and successfully implemented in a variety of industries.

Cognitive Walkthrough Operator Ratings

Design, Test & Development Cycle

ClassifiedCategorizedFused

Multi-modal alert notifications based on specific alert characteristics

Visual

Audible

Tactile

Managing Operator AlertsSelect Situation Awareness-Oriented Design Principles

The Situation Awareness-Oriented Design (SAOD) process is a user-focused design methodology based on SA theory. Using 50 design principles, SAOD provides a major advantage in developing effective system displays by directly addressing the issue of information content and how to optimize the presentation of that content for the user. As a key component of SAOD, the higher levels of SA (i.e., comprehension and projection) are directly supported via visual displays, significantly reducing unnecessary mental workload. SAOD is a three-phase process:

1. SA requirements analysis 2. SA oriented design3. SA measurement

Situation Awareness-Oriented Design (SAOD) for Electric Shovel Operator UI Concepts