Designing for Situation Awareness: An Approach to User-Centered Design

"Preface Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's jobs with yesterday's tools. Marshall McLuhan While a clear understanding of one's situation is undoubtedly the critical trigger that allows the knowledge, skills, and creativity of the human mind to be successfully brought to bear in shaping our environment, very often people must work uphill, against systems and technologies that block rather than enhance their ability to ascertain the information they need. Knowledge in a vacuum is meaningless. Its use in overcoming human problems and achieving human goals requires the successful application of that knowledge in ways that are contextually appropriate. Yet, across a wide variety of engineered systems, people face an ever-widening information gap--the gulf between the data that is available and the information that they really need to know. This book addresses the information gap through system design. It presents a core set of principles and a methodology for engineers and designers who are seeking to nourish the situation awareness of their system's users. Operators of power plants, aircraft, automobiles, ships, command and control centers for military and large-scale commercial enterprises, intelligence operations, medical systems, and information management systems are all in need of technologies that allow people to effectively manage the information available to gain a high level of understanding of what is happening. They need systems designed to support situation awareness. We are indebted to many people. First, we are grateful for the support and patience of our families during the writing of this book--may it lead to a better world for our children"--