AHFE Open AccessAdvances in Human Factors, Software, and Systems Engineering
Editors: Ben Amaba, Brian Dalgetty
Topics: Software and Systems Engineering
Publication Date: 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4951-2096-1
DOI: 10.54941/ahfe100120
Articles
Recommendations for Tracelink Decisions – An Empirical Investigation of Visualizations
Today, engineering processes integrate many subsystems from different domains like Mechanics, Electrics or Software. Therefore the systems that are engineered become more and more complex. As system complexity increases, the number of dependencies between subsystems increases as well. Hence, engineers are obliged to keep track on these dependencies via tracelinks. The present paper investigates four types of decision support (percentages, brief information, a traffic light metaphor and a half-star rating) that help engineers to decide if a tracelink should be set or not. Moreover multiple objective and subjective dependent measures were assessed. Despite the pre-study character of the present work results indicate that the half-star rating system was best in terms of objective performance, at least for experts. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Elisabeth Brandenburg, Stefanie Zander, Asmus Figge, Grischa Beier
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
A Performance Support Tool for Human Factors Design and Evaluation
H-FAST (Human Factors Analysis Support Tool) is a research and development project with NASA to increase human factors awareness among design engineers, facilitate communication between human factors engineers and design engineers, and promote the application of human factors best practices earlier in the design cycle. H-FAST reduces the amount of in-person time needed for evaluations by Human factors specialists by organizing their body of knowledge and presenting it in a way that is usable by engineers throughout the design process. H-FAST also provides detailed guidance regarding human factors evaluations and the capability to store data and provide feedback on the results of these evaluations. H-FAST will improve the engineering design process by providing engineers with easy access to detailed human factors methods, relevant research, and subject matter expert contact information. This will empower engineers to create more usable systems, thus reducing the number of design iterations and resulting in higher-quality products. In this paper, we describe the identification and development of relevant human factors information that was included in the tool, discuss the methods and results of a user test at NASA, and provide an overview of how H-FAST can be extended to other domains such as commercial aviation, homeland security, and product design.
Terence Andre a, Rod Ford a, Ryan Meyer a, Angelia Sebok b
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Social Interaction Simulators for the Increase in Human Reliability in the Design of New Industrial Plants
Industrial projects today should be executed as soon as possible, taking into consideration current standards, corporate technical specifications, best practices and other information. Industrial plants are becoming more complex, and therefore so are the projects. The number of teams involved is large, as are the number of documents generated and manipulated. Consequently, it becomes necessary to develop new tools that are agile and that can be used by managers and designers. In order to increase the reliability of the human design of new refineries, a simulator of social interactions has been developed, based on serious games, to be used in the design process, in the management of new projects and in the training of new operators. Into this simulator are inserted the PDMS database of the new project, the database of 3D digital human models, and criteria established by the required standards. With this simulator one can evaluate new plants, test human interactions to the operation of valves and other components in the industrial area, test collective work in specific scenarios, as well as simulate maintenance work. One can quickly test different scenarios and different design alternatives. The simulator stores the actions performed by the avatars or virtual operators, which routes were taken, communications exchanged and strategies adopted by each operator, in order to incorporate them in the training for novice operators. According to the results obtained, these simulators contribute to the compliance of the project, and to reduce time and errors during the design process. They optimize control in implementation and validation of the project, and also contribute to the training of new operators.
Venétia Santos, Maria Cristina Zamberlan, José Luis Oliveira, Fernando Cardoso Ribeiro, Priscilla Streit, Flavia Hofstetter Pastura, Thaly Malka y Negri, Carla Patrícia Guimarães, Gloria Lopez Cid
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Towards Modeling and Predictive Analysis of Emergent Behavior of Intelligent Transportation System of Systems
Transportation systems are at the foundation of economies – cost effectively, safely, and sustainably moving people, goods, and ideas locally, regionally, nationally and globally. The current U.S.A. national transportation system is composed of land, water, and aerospace services. The individual systems supporting these services are large scale and complex, involving numerous stakeholders (e.g., citizens, planning, operations, maintenance, manufacturers/developers, regulators, public safety) and technical standards (e.g., Traffic Management Data Dictionary, National Transportation Communications for ITS Protocol). The demands on these systems are growing rapidly; to support these impending needs a vision for the future of transportation has been proposed: an integrated, international, intermodal, inclusive, intelligent, and innovative system of systems (SoS), with multiple interfaces and shared information and infrastructure elements. In this collaborative research project, we propose to define a standards-based approach that supports their modeling, simulation, and predictive analysis, with particular focus on the emergent behavior of the SoS. We view the emergent behavior problem from a component-based systems engineering perspective: how to represent, select, compose, and analyze the individual systems and the overall composition of the SoS. The research is being conducted in the context of an Intelligent Transportation Simulation Game, to make it feasible for the academic environment and appealing to students. Here, we present our preliminary work to establish a well-structured prototype SoS for the simulation game, which will be used to explore the research questions with a concrete, example system. The prototype SoS currently includes the game system and four small, independent transportation systems (rail, car, bus, pedestrian), providing multiple routes for a commuter to travel to work. Although simple, the prototype provides a foundation to build upon in the next steps of the project.
Kendra Coopera, Lawrence Chunga, Ben Amabab, Scott Darlingtonc, Laurel Dickson-Bulld
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Safety Analysis from Bottom to Top and Top to Bottom
When it comes to functional safety, there are several ways to handle. Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) is an analysis method, generally for testing reliability which is considered as a bottom to up approach. The idea is to identify all the possible faults of the system and analyse their effects. The safety point of view is added to this method when "criticality" is introduced. This is called Failure Mode Effects and Criticality Analysis. The idea is to identify the probability of failure modes against the severity of their consequences in addition to FMEA studies. On the other hand, Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) is a top down approach to identify safety related risks of the system. In this paper, we would like to present how it would be possible to use both methods to verify each other in terms of completeness and validity. We will use a conceptual approach and try to implement these concepts in analysis tools for automation and reporting.
Kerim Çakmak
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Agile Systems Engineering
Traditionally systems engineering is a heavily document-based approach. The arrival of the SysML modeling language changed the face of systems engineering from a process of creating and reviewing documents to the construction, analysis, and execution of high fidelity systems models. This evolution of systems engineering has resulted in improved requirements specification, better architectural definition, and better hand off to downstream engineering, including mechanical, electrical and software development. What is needed now is a process that takes advantage of the advances in model-based engineering (MBE) while at the same time reduces the time and effort required for systems engineering. Agile methods have proven successful in the software domain, but how can these incremental, iterative, and agile methods be applied to systems engineering? This is a talk about how agile methods have had a tremendous impact on the development of embedded and real-time software and how to best gain the advantages of agile methods within the systems engineering domain.
Bruce Powell Douglas, Kerim Cakmak
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
The Systems Modeling Language and its Application to Railway Signaling Systems
The Object Management Group (OMG) Systems Modeling Language (SysML) defines a general-purpose language for the modeling of systems engineering products. It supports activities across the lifecycle such as specification, analysis, design, verification and validation. Whilst widely used in domains such as Aerospace and Defense, the language has been less used in Railway Signaling Systems. However Railway Signaling Systems are complex, safety critical systems and would benefit greatly from the application of SysML, as this paper intends to show.
Andy Lapping, Kerim Cakmak
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Integration of Human Factors' Aspects into Multilayered Reachback Operations via IRIS Integrated Reachback Information System
Key elements of modern decision making processes are reachback operations. Complex analytic processes like modelling, simulation and optimization as key discipline of Operations Research (OR) are supported by reachback processes. Within such a special multilayered process the integration of soft- and hard OR techniques is essential. This contribution focuses especially on the aspect how Human Factors components can be embedded in an optimal way: We present the IRIS research project and describe its impact on living labs. Actual results which are connected with international Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIO) and complex transportation networks are described and discussed within the presentation.
Stefan Pickl
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Unboxing Trust in Cloud Computing. A Survey Study
Cloud computing is a vital change in the way we process and store data. Having data stored inside the cloud, it is not physically present on the user’s hard drive. Therefore he or she is no longer involved in the collection, processes, storage and disclosure of this data (Cavoukian, 2008). This makes the user more vulnerable, especially in the case of sensitive data (Onwubiko, 2010). The present survey tries to unravel the facets of trust in cloud services and the usage of a cloud storage service, Dropbox. Factors from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), privacy and security, reputation, and personal innovativeness were included in a research model and assessed with a questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire analysis show the importance of privacy and security as well as reputation in building trust. The TAM seems to be associated with trust and moderating the influence of trust on the usage of Dropbox. Finally, theoretical assumptions and practical implications of the findings are discussed highlighting the importance of trust in cloud computing and all fields of information system research.
Nils Backhaus, Stefan Brandenburg a
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Usability of Document Management Systems Considering Users' Level of Experience: A Survey
Through the use of Document Management Systems (DMS) companies can enhance the automation of processes within documents’ registration, classification, processing, archiving and distribution. However, the usability aspect in current selection processes of DMS is inadequately represented. The reason for this neglect is the fact that although functional criteria can be easily formulated for the evaluation and selection of DMS, it is very difficult to specify criteria concerning usability. Objective criteria need to be developed, which can be used a priori for the evaluation and selection of DMS. The criteria have to be developed in a way that they (referring to usability) are applicable to non-specialist users in SMEs. In order to develop these criteria, the existing usability weaknesses of DMS have to be identified as well as the users’ skills, tasks and requirements. In this paper results of a survey are presented.
Antje Heinicke, Christina Bröhl, Jennifer Bützler, Christopher M. Schlick
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Layout Structures of Network Diagrams in Project Management Software: An Age-Differentiated Empirical Investigation Concerning Symmetry and Space
The use of network diagrams in project management software is a useful tool when planning projects. However, working with these diagrams can quickly become confusing when dealing with complex project plans. This effect is even more pronounced for older persons as they have to deal with age-related changes in perception, cognition and motor control. Nevertheless, project planning is often accomplished by older employees due to their knowledge and experience. There are certain aspects of layout structures that can support perception and decision making when working with complex diagrams. This paper describes an age-differentiated study in which the factors symmetry and spatial distance between activities were investigated. In order to gain practical relevance, the study combined different tasks and different complexities of visualization. In addition to reaction times and errors, eye tracking data was analyzed to acquire additional information. The results of this study reveal that the work with network diagrams can benefit from a proper designed layout structure regarding symmetry and distance. A symmetrical structure and narrow distances led to improvements in performance for all age groups.
Jennifer Bützler, Romy Brömme, Christina Bröhl, Nicole Jochems, Christopher M. Schlick
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Integration of Information and Communication Technology in Behaviour Therapy for Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most common psychiatric disorder in childhood. Several studies demonstrate that the optimal approach to tackling it is a multimodal treatment including a cognitive behavioural approach. A key role for young ADHD pupils is played by monitoring carried out by teachers, parents and relatives. This paper presents the methods applied and lessons learned during the system engineering process within the WHAAM project, which aims to deliver efficacious means for the therapy through integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) into the treatment process. The applied methods include structured interviews with parents, teachers and health professionals, the iterative development of paper/software prototypes and demonstration to the prospective users as well as Wizard of Oz studies to identify usability problems. In addition to the concrete results relating to the design of the user interface and interaction process this paper describes the effective procedure model applied that has proven to be able to consider the manifold requirements of the different stakeholders involved in the integration of ICT in healthcare scenarios
Alexander Mertens, Amy Callahan, Kevin Doherty, Sarah-Jane Gerber
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Levels of Abstraction for User Modeling in the Usability Engineering Repository UsER
Amelie Roenspieß, Marc Paul, Tilo Mentler, Michael HerczegABSTRACTUser analysis and user modeling provide important information for the development of usable interactive computer systems. The Usability Engineering Repository (UsER), a web-based collaboration platform, supports analysis, design, and evaluation in the corresponding processes. In order to take specific users into account, UsER integrates modules covering various methods for user modeling within a development process. Users can be modeled on several levels of abstraction as personas, stereotypes or user classes. How they fulfill their tasks within their work environment may be outlined in organizational charts, task models, or scenarios. Mapped onto a linear documentation structure, model entities and descriptions can be interlinked to point out semantic relationships, ease navigation and allow tracing of user goals and requirements throughout the user-centered development process.
Amelie Roenspieß, Marc Paul, Tilo Mentler, Michael Herczeg
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Mobility requirements for the use of carpooling among different user groups
Facing today’s growing urbanization, increasing environmental pollution, and changing socio-economical factors, efficient mobility concepts are needed that allow counteracting the resulting challenges. The concept of carpooling might represent one such solution for sustaining mobility and reducing traffic problems of congested cities. To exploit the potential of carpooling in general, and to improve the interaction with existing web-based carpooling platforms, user-centered research was applied. Empirical data were acquired by an online survey (N=1261), in which requirements and key motivators for the use of carpooling were explored in different user groups. Overall, a positive attitude toward the use of carpooling emerged, whereby costs saving, protection of environment, and stress-free driving were revealed to be the key drivers of usage behavior. The results showed though that user diversity is crucial: There are differing requirements on ridesharing systems between older and younger, male and female carpooling users as well as depending on peoples’ status of employment. As the concept of carpooling is a valuable solution for cost and fuel effective traveling, it is relevant to enhance its success and to spread the idea in growing urban areas. Thus, considering users’ diverse demands and wishes, and a diligent implementing of carpooling system refinements is promising.
Wiktoria Wilkowska, Reyhaneh Farrokhikhiavi, Martina Ziefle, Dirk Vallée
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
The Role of User Factors on the Ease of Using Graphical Notation Systems
In this study, the usability and the learnability of Graphical notation systems in process modeling languages (PMM) are examined. The learnability of PMMs largely depends on the individual PMM knowledge of employees, but also on process-specific knowledge about task elements, process routines and required resources. Differing cognitive abilities might also hamper a correct understanding of process models. Applying a user-centered research approach, a three-step experimental procedure was carried out focusing on the usability of PMM. First, a usability analysis of the graphical notation system of the C3 PMM was conducted, using a naming task (n = 35) and the sign production method (n = 30) in order to check the understandability of the original elements of the C3 - PPM. On the base of the outcomes, elements were reshaped in a second step. Third, the comprehensibility and the learnability of the C3 notation system were assessed (n = 22). In addition, the impact of user factors on learnability and comprehensibility of notation elements was analyzed. The findings show that the efficiency and the effectiveness of graphical notation systems depend on the degree to which user-centered design principles are carefully considered. Usability evaluation methods from the Human-Computer Interaction research were successfully applied to industrial contexts.
Martina Ziefle, Katrin Arning
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Modeling the Influence of Human Factors on the Perception of Renewable Energies. Taking Geothermics as Example
Issues of social acceptance, such as lack of awareness and negative community perceptions, can considerably affect technology development and rollout. For this purposes a deeper understanding of underlying mechanisms that influence acceptance is urgently needed in the context of renewable energies when the goal is to reduce CO2 emission by 20% until the year 2020. The associated project of this study - TIGER - has the aim to develop a communication strategy to implement renewable energy technologies like geothermics. As a first step this research focuses on analyzing factors that determine the perception and thus acceptance of deep geothermal energy technologies. A study was conducted with a sample of 360 participants in the western part of Germany. The TPB (Theory of planned behavior) was expanded with further variables such as environmental attitudes and attitudes towards renewable energies. A structural equation model was used to analyze the correlation between proposed psychological antecedents and further moderating factors on the acceptance of geothermal power plants in the own neighborhood. Results show that underlying motives as well as barriers significantly affect the acceptance of geothermal energy. Behavioral control appeared as an important moderating effect in this model whereas the influence of environmental attitudes is not apparent. Furthermore, results also reveal that especially the scope of information plays an important role in acceptance of geothermal energy, meaning informed people show a significantly higher acceptance and less skepticism than not-informed people. This emphasizes the urgent need for information and communication in the context of relatively unknown technologies like geothermal energy.
Sylvia Kowalewski*, Anna Borg**, Johanna Kluge*, Simon Himmel*, Bianka Trevisan*, Denise Eraßme*, Martina Ziefle*, Eva-Maria Jakobs*
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
The Human Factor in Systems Engineering: Engineering Systems Thinking
To successfully perform systems engineering tasks, systems engineers need a systems view or, in other words, a high capacity for engineering systems thinking (CEST). A tool for assessing systems thinking of engineers, once validated, may be used for systems engineering workforce selection and development, developing systems engineering curriculum, and education and training programs and a standard tool for assessing systems engineers' competencies. Since there is no known way for directly 'measuring' systems thinking in general and CEST in particular, an indirect way is needed. This paper proposes an idea for developing an indirect means, i.e. a questionnaire for assessing the CEST of systems engineers. The idea is composed of four logic layers.
Moti Frank
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Edge Awareness – A Dynamic Safety Perspective on Four Accidents/Incidents
A framework focusing on the difference between situation awareness and edge awareness is presented. It consists in distinguishing system awareness from situation awareness, and introducing edge awareness as the candidate mental state to be used as a lodestar in design of resilient systems and to avoid future systems disasters. A case-study on four well known accidents/incidents is presented. The investigation reports are filtered through the new framework resulting in alternative interpretations of the causes of the accidents. It is concluded that the role of calculative models in systems disasters must be examined thoroughly, and that one way to counteract for such disasters is to design for edge awareness. Having edge awareness means being involved in and aware of how situations develop, how systems contribute and how these aspects combine into a joint and an emergent phenomenon. Edge awareness is the basis for responsible and autonomous decisions.
Patrik Stenssona, Anders Janssonb
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Facebook as a Source for Human-Centered Engineering: Web Mining-Based Reconstruction of Stakeholder Perspectives on Energy Systems
In this paper, a new approach in acceptance research is presented analyzing Facebook-user profiles and text data of stakeholders for purposes of human-centered engineering. Thereby, data from topic-specific German Facebook-pages are collected by means of a self-developed Facebook-parser and analyzed semi-automatically with Web Mining-methods applying a multi-level annotation scheme for sentiment analysis. The aim of the analysis is to get insights about (1) who is discussing energy systems in the Web, (2) how users evaluate energy systems (positive, negative, neutral), and (3) which gender-related differences in user discussions (acceptance factors) can be observed. As an application example, the renewable energy form deep geothermal energy is used, which has increasingly become subject of public discussion in the context of the German energy turnaround. The results of the Facebook-study show that in human-centered engineering of energy systems gender-sensitivity is of major importance: Men are primarily focusing on the overall economic efficiency and the environment protection, women pay more attention to costs and benefits that affect themselves. Thus, engineers of complex energy systems such as geothermal energy should therefore take into consideration the aspect of divergent gender perspectives.
Bianka Trevisan, Denise Eraßme, Tim Hemig, Sylvia Kowalewski, Johanna Kluge, Simon Himmel, Anna Borg, Eva-Maria Jakobs, Martina Ziefle
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Systemic Design Research for Hospital Laundry
Most of the existing design research on medical and healthcare is base on the current medical services and products system which work in a linear way. But this linear system often causes a huge waste of resources and energy, and pollutes the environment at the same time. To improve this situation, we chose the hospital laundry as the research object, studied and redesigned its working system from a Systemic Design perspective. Aiming to change the medical system from a linear system to a systemic one, we redesigned the material and energy flows of the system and optimized the relationships between the elements. This new approach will help identify new design opportunities and change the system to a more efficient one.
Hua Min, Liu Long
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings