Displays

Question 1

The four categories of display design

Answer 1

1 - attention
2 - perception
3 - memory
4 - mental model

Question 2

Principles based on attention

Answer 2

1 - salience comparability
2 - minimize information access cost
3 - proximity compatibility
4 - avoid resource competition

Question 3

Salience compatability

Answer 3

Most important information should be the most obvious.

Question 4

Minimize information access cost

Answer 4

Don’t make people look around the screen for the information they need or flip screens.

Question 5

Proximity compatability

Answer 5

When two things are mentally linked (i.e. graph and its legend) they should be physically linked.

Question 6

Avoid resource competition

Answer 6

Present information using different modalities instead of all of the same type.

Question 7

Principles based on perception

Answer 7

1 - legible and audible
2 - avoid absolute judgement limits
3 - support top-down processing
4 - exploit redundancy gain
5 - make discriminable

Question 8

Legible and audible

Answer 8

Make sure it is easy to read and hear.

Question 9

Avoid absolute judgement limits

Answer 9

Don’t make people evaluate things without references (like a hue or a pitch) and nothing to compare it to.

Question 10

Support top-down processing

Answer 10

Make sure signals present in a way that is consistent with what people would expect them to mean.

Question 11

Exploit redundancy gain

Answer 11

Present the information in multiple ways (i.e. stoplights have “go” as both green and always at the top) so if the signal is hard to interpret there are other ones they can rely on.

Question 12

Make discriminable

Answer 12

Don’t make signals too similar.

Question 13

Principles based on memory

Answer 13

1 - knowledge in the world
2 - support visual momentum
3 - provide predictive aiding
4 - be consistent

Question 14

Knowledge in the world

Answer 14

Provide the information they need.

Question 15

Support visual momentum

Answer 15

Make information easy to communicate when going across multiple displays so the operator doesn’t need to reorient and then forget the previous information each time.

Question 16

Provide predictive aiding

Answer 16

Make it easier for operators to predict or interpret the information so they don’t have to waste resources thinking about it.

Question 17

Be consistent

Answer 17

Keep indicators and structure between screens the same to help long term memory and top-down processing.

Question 18

Principles based on a mental model

Answer 18

1 - principle of pictorial realism

2 - principle of a moving part

Question 19

Pictorial realism

Answer 19

A display should mimic what it represents (i.e. something with a high or low value should have a representation indicated vertically with high at the top and low at the bottom; oven knobs)

Question 20

Moving part

Answer 20

Dynamic representations should move in a way that represents how the user might expect it to physically (i.e. temperature going up in a thermometer should have a bar rise with temperature like a mercury thermometer).

Question 21

Three levels of geographical knowledge

Answer 21

1. Landmark knowledge, or using the most salient features to orient ourselves
   2, Route knowledge, or point by point navigation using landmarks or visual triggers (loses you if you get off course)
2. Survey knowledge, internalized map thorough experiences and world centered orientation (like cardinal directions)