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This paper discusses the process of designing the user interface of a handheld mobile communication device. The purpose of this device is to improve the coordination between parties that are conducting a complex work task in a high-risk environment by standardizing the communication between them. The discussion is illustrated with examples from the...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... out the task of mooring and letting go the lines when arriving or departing from the harbor involves a number for physically distributed actors at designated locations on the ship and ashore (see figure 1). ...
Context 2
... the present status fore and aft is represented textually. A possible sequence is illustrated in figure 11. On deck, the interface is very similar to that on the bridge, thus providing the first and second officers with a view on the present status of the mooring and a list of all past and ongoing communication among the distributed actors ( figure 12). ...
Context 3
... possible sequence is illustrated in figure 11. On deck, the interface is very similar to that on the bridge, thus providing the first and second officers with a view on the present status of the mooring and a list of all past and ongoing communication among the distributed actors ( figure 12). In the list of ongoing tasks, however, the interface on deck requests commands from the bridge (like e.g. ...
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Citations
... Specifically, automation seems to be most helpful in cases are humans were operating under higher workloads. One example of automation using mobile devices was a system to help coordinate the movements of a large container ship and was shown to improved safety [12]. An evaluation of mobile devices used in American hospitals to write and print prescriptions found that usability problems introduced certain new errors [13]. ...
Every year almost 10 million children die before reaching the age of five despite the fact that two-thirds of these deaths could be prevented by effective low-cost interventions. To combat this, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF developed the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) treatment algorithms. In Tanzania, IMCI is the national policy for the treatment of childhood illness. This paper describes e-IMCI, a system for administering the IMCI protocol using a PDA. Our preliminary investigation in rural Tanzania suggests that e- IMCI is almost as fast as the common practice and potentially improves care by increasing adherence to the IMCI protocols. Additionally, we found clinicians could quickly be trained to use e-IMCI and were very enthusiastic about using it in the future.
... A prototype of the " Handheld Maritime Communicator " was designed and implemented for supporting the task of letting go the lines (Kjeldskov and Stage 2002). The prototype was targeted at a Compaq Ipaq 3630 handheld computer with 32MB RAM and a color display of 240x320 pixels running Microsoft PocketPC. ...
Several years of research in industry and academia has shown that usability issues influence users' interactions and perceptions of the software products. Lack of usability may prove critical in the success and survival of a product. The diffusion of new advanced technologies seems to challenge established ways of conducting usability evaluations. E.g. several mobile collaborative systems are difficult to evaluate in their natural inhabitant since the use situation is very complex involving distributed work tasks and actions while other mobile collaborative systems deal with safety-critical issues involving risks for people and equipment. This paper describes an exploratory study of two different approaches to usability evaluation of the same mobile collaborative system for coordinating work tasks on a large container ship. The two evaluations are based on an expert evaluation, heuristic inspection, and a user-based evaluation, usability testing with the think-aloud protocol. The two evaluations were conducted in laboratory settings in order to identify potential strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches. The primary result of the study is that from the expert evaluation it is difficult to identify usability problems related to the support for collaborative work. The reason for this is that expert evaluation is conducted centralized. The problems identified in the expert evaluation more concern general interaction issues. In the think-aloud evaluation on the other hand, a large number of collaboration related usability problems were revealed.
... Thus, mobile systems for supporting these work activities have to be carefully evaluated. We designed an experimental prototype to support the work task " letting go the lines " (Kjeldskov and Stage, 2002) based on ethnographic studies of work activities on a container vessel (Andersen and May, 2001; Nielsen, 2000). Here, the first step in leaving the quay is letting go the mooring lines holding the vessel in a fixed position. ...
... Based on the analysis described above, a prototype of the " Handheld Maritime Communicator " was designed and implemented (Kjeldskov and Stage 2002). The prototype setup consisted of three iPAQ 3630 connected through an IEEE 802.11b 11Mbit wireless TCP/IP network. ...
This paper addresses the issue of creating a realistic laboratory setting when evaluating the usability of mobile systems. Three laboratory-based think-aloud evaluations of the same mobile system were designed and conducted for the purpose of comparing the impact of different approaches to creating realistic laboratory environments on the results subsequently produced. The three evaluations spanned the use of test subjects with and without domain specific knowledge and the use of low and high fidelity simulations of the use context. The results show similarities and differences in the results of the three evaluations. First, an equal number of usability problems are identified in the evaluations, and a standard laboratory involving non-domain subjects can identify severe problems. On the other hand, employing domain test subjects in a simulated laboratory seems to generate some additional problems which would be difficult to identify in the standard laboratory.
We present the process of designing the first prototype of the Handheld Maritime Communicator: a mobile computer system supporting communication and coordination of safety-critical work activities on large container vessels. Designing the user experience of the Handheld Maritime Communicator was a particular challenge because it targets a highly specialized context of use and because poor design could potentially become a safety hazard. Meeting this challenge, ethnographic field studies on board container vessels were conducted, detailed analyses were carried out, and iterative design was performed. The design produced replaces a large amount of present spoken communication with predefined textual messages on a handheld device. This facilitates persistency, partial automation, and possible integration with other computer-based data. Evaluating the prototype in a high-fidelity ship simulator, prospective users validated the overall design, but also identified a number of usability problems that need to be addressed.
Task instructions have traditionally been communicated orally in many fields. However, recently more and more wearable displays, such as the see-through head mounted displays (HMDs) have been developed, and some studies have provided ideas on applying visual instruction using these new interfaces to particular situations. However, in some cases, where instructions are communicated amongst the workers, the data is not sufficient for field workers to choose the best way of communicating instructions depending on the situation. Thus, this study aims to clarify the cases in which it is effective to apply visual instructions with HMDs, and to provide information that suggests the applicability of such visual instructions instead of or in addition to the traditional auditory instructions in different situations. These suggestions will be a useful reference for workers in safety-critical fields, helping them make better decisions about whether, when, and where to introduce the new method of instructions. It will also address some of the unsolved problems in the field, such as errors, low efficiency, and discomfort in communication.
Advances in mobile computing technology and software applications have led to an expansion in potential uses for handheld computers for various tasks. One strong application area is in maintenance and inspection. Network Rail has been progressively developing and applying handheld computers to field-based maintenance and inspection operations, with the aims of improving work productivity and quality, and personal and system safety. However, it is clear that these aims so far have been achieved with varying degrees of success.
Handheld computer devices have the potential to enhance the procedure of performing the tasks in many different ways. However, the current handheld computers introduced to maintenance and inspection tasks in Network Rail have principally been designed as data entry tools and in most cases the primary objective is to reduce the amount of paper work and the associated costs and errors. This highlights the need for fundamental research into the ways in which handheld computer technologies should be specified, designed and implemented for effective use in a complex distributed environment such as the rail industry.
The main purpose of this research was to study the applications of handheld computers in the rail industry and to generate a set of design principles for development of future systems within Network Rail. The findings of this research have contributed to the identification of human factors principles that need to be considered for design and implementation of successful handheld computer applications. A framework was also developed to summarise and organise information and functional requirements of maintenance workers.
Investigating maintenance workers’ requirements through interviews and observations emphasised the importance of rail specific spatial information and the benefits of providing this knowledge to maintenance workers through a mobile computing device which is portable and easy to use. However, displaying rail specific spatial information on the small screen of a handheld computer introduces various HCI issues and challenges. These were addressed in part through a programme of experiments, and therefore the final section of this research focused on examining fundamental aspects of presenting rail specific spatial information on handheld computer screens.
The main findings from different stages of this research have been collated into a set of recommendations for design and development of usable and useful applications for handheld computer devices in the rail industry.
