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Ecological Interface Design
There are very few theoretical frameworks in the cognitive engineering
literature that explicitly aim to support worker adaptation. One
exception is the ecological interface design (EID) framework proposed
by Vicente and Rasmussen (1990, 1992). EID is based on Rasmussen's
(1986) abstraction hierarchy and skills, rules, knowledge taxonomy
of levels of cognitive control.
The EID framework takes its name from a school of psychology known
as ecological psychology. This school of psychology was originally
developed by two well known researchers, Egon Brunswik and James
J. Gibson, who shared a number of metatheoretical commitments, including:
adopting the human-environment system as the fundamental unit of
analysis; examining the constraints that the environment imposes
on behaviour; conducting experiments under representative conditions;
and paying attention to the powerful, but often ignored, capabilities
of perception and action. EID also shares these metatheoretical commitments,
and therefore has strong ties to the work of both Brunswik and Gibson.
EID has now been applied to a number of diverse application domains,
including: process control, aviation, computer network management,
software engineering, medicine, command and control, and information
retrieval. In addition to the extensive body of work conducted by
CEL, approximately 90 papers motivated by the EID framework have
been written by other scholars in Canada, US, Japan, France, England,
Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.
This research has had an impact on academe. The first conference
paper on EID, written in 1988, was included in a book containing
influential papers previously published in the Proceedings of the
Human Factors Society Annual Meetings. Only 79 research papers were
selected for this book from an eligible pool of over 3,500. The first
journal article on EID, written in 1989, was recently listed by the
editor of the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies as
one of the most frequently cited and influential papers to appear
in that journal's 30 year history.
Research on EID has also had an impact on industry. Both Honeywell
and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited Research have used EID interfaces
designed by CEL as examples of state of the art interface design
for process control systems. Toshiba in Japan has adopted the EID
framework and some EID displays created by CEL in the design of their
prototype advanced control room for the next generation nuclear power
plant. This technology transfer to industry, while limited, indicates
that the EID framework is a promising candidate for interface design
for complex systems.
References:
- Rasmussen, J. (1986). Information
Processing and Human-Machine Interaction: An Approach to Cognitive
Engineering. New York: North-Holland.
- Vicente, K. J. & Rasmussen, J. (1992). Ecological interface
design: theoretical foundations. IEEE
Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, SMC-22, 589-6.
- Vicente, K. J. & Rasmussen, J. (1990). The ecology of human-machine
systems II: mediating "direct perception" in complex
work domains. Ecological Psychology, 2, 207-250.
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