HFES Houston Chapter
2004 Conference |
HFES Houston Chapter 2004 Conference |
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Presentation Abstracts 1. Office Ergonomic Programs: the benefits and limitations of several different styles of management. Martha Parker Discussion will be centered around developing an office ergo program and the roles of ergonomists, health and safety, medical/risk management, facilities, and purchasing. Pros and cons of a total in-house program, a combination of in-house and contractors, and a totally outsourced program will be covered.
2. NASA Johnson Space Center Usability Testing and Analysis Facility (UTAF) Overview Mihriban Whitmore The Usability Testing and Analysis Facility (UTAF) is
part of the Space Human Factors Laboratory at the NASA Johnson Space
Center in Houston, Texas. The facility provides support to the Office
of Biological and Physical Research, the Space Shuttle Program, the
International Space Station Program, and other NASA organizations. In
addition, there are ongoing collaborative research efforts with external
businesses and universities.
3. A Human Factors Tool for the Chemical Industry Gareth Hughes DNV Consulting The presentation will refer to the development of a human factors tool to allow a speciality chemicals company to better undertstand and embrace human factors concepts within its operations. I will present a little about the development of the tool, the transfer of technology to the company and some of the practical lessons learned.
4. A Closed-Loop, ACT-R Approach to Modeling Approach and Landing With and Without Synthetic Vision System (SVS) Technology Michael D. Byrne* Alex Kirlik+ Michael D. Fleetwood*
David G. Huss* Alex Kosorukoff+ Ruei-sung Lin+ Chris S. Fick* We present a computational model of closed-loop, pilot-displays-aircraft system designed to evaluate the impact of the addition of a synthetic vision system (SVS) to a commercial airliner cockpit. The NASA-run empirical study revealed that while pilots rarely looked out the window during most phases of approach and landing, they devoted a substantial proportion of their gaze toward the SVS. We believe this is largely a function of the symbology overlaid on the SVS rather than because the terrain rendered on the SVS was compelling for the pilots. A model pilot implemented in ACT-R was connected to a commercial flight simulator package in an attempt to model pilots' attention allocation behaviors. Based on metrics such as transitions from one display to another, the model provides a good approximation to pilot behaviors and should allow us to perform virtual experiments on the impact of changes to the SVS.
5. The Use of Usability Heuristics in the Evaluation of a Digital EMS System Zhihua Tang*, Jiajie Zhang*, Todd R. Johnson*,
Elmer Bernstam*, and Douglas Tindall+ We present here an empirical work of applying heuristic evaluation as a usability inspection tool to the iterative design of a medical information system. Three usability experts, acting as a group, evaluated two consecutive prototypes of a digital Emergency Medical Service (EMS) information system according to a set of 14 software usability heuristics. The analyses revealed information about the prevalence, severity and nature of heuristic violations in each design. The results were subsequently used to guide the iterative designing process. The revised prototype had only half as many usability violations as the first prototype, and had significant improvement in certain usability categories. We argue that usability should be given top priority in the development of a medical information system, and that heuristic evaluation is an effective and efficient way to identify usability problems in the early stage of software development.
6. Human Factors Contributions to Mission Operations Teamwork with Collaborating Agents (MOTCA) at NASA Johnson Space Center Jane Malin and Carroll Thronesbery This NASA project is developing prototypes of software tools to support teamwork among humans and software assistants in future space operations. One of the web-based tools provides situation awareness of the status of various types of information produced by the team. The team uses an event logger, an automated report generator, and super-folders to organize information associated with specific problems or issues. The project uses iterative spiral design methods, with collaborative development by contributors from multiple disciplines. Human factors methods and human-centered methods have helped identify needed human task support, strategies for supporting the task with software, and for effective implementation. Evaluations go beyond usability and user interface, addressing effectiveness and appropriateness of task support. They include informal evaluations (walkthroughs with users and designers) and more formal evaluations with users (both formative and summative). One area of specific interest is user control and customization of innovative software in socio-technical systems.
7. The IBM case study regarding Flat Panel Savings and why the Flat Panel Arm is crucial for incurring the special savings Bill Pace Even as Technology changes, most companies continue to
buy Case Goods and System Furniture that does a poor job adapting to
the new Technology and to the individual body styles. What we propose
is for our clients to review how Ergonomic Tools can take advantage
of the ever changing Technology to create a work environment where by
the individual user has a greater Ergonomic Zone while taking up less
of a foot print on the floor plan. We have found that this paradigm
shift not only saves the client money now, but allows for future growth
by taking advantage of technology that exists now.
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