This issue of InfoVis focuses on the problem of facilitating quick and accurate situation awareness in the design of multifunction displays for airplanes, ships, and other mechanical systems. I believe the same concerns and precepts apply to the design of effective web displays to facilite the search and retrieval of educational resources. The home page of a repository must quickly guide the attention of new users in the same way that an airplane display guides new pilots; as the user and pilot become more experienced, then more refined tools and displays can be utilized. (I can't claim to have been highly successful in this design dimension. Many of my web pages resemble confusing multi-funtion displays rather than simple easy-to-use displays. I hope that I haven't caused too many crash and burn incidents.) ______JH
_______
"Around 1980 it was discovered that human beings extract the global aspects of a scene before perceiving the details of the same. Consequently these global aspects predominate when processing the information they provide. Moreover, it's believed that this type of analysis is preemptive, i.e. it happens without the cognitive effort associated to the sequential search of features followed by their individual analysis. An example of preemptive perception is the virtually instantaneous recognition of a face, that happens without the need to think, in an almost automatic way.
It appears then logical to think that information systems, be them for controlling an airplane, a nuclear plant or a company involved in the market should offer a clear representation of the global aspects which then allow the user to go into more detailed features. This, on the other hand, matches well with the famous mantra of Ben Shneiderman:
'Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand'
This wasn't what typically happened in the plane cockpits prior to the digital era. Their control panels where full of circular dials ... that presented a huge amount of detailed information."
5:47:08 PM 
|
