Seeing the woods for the trees: the problem of information inefficiency and information overload on operator performance
One of the recurring questions in designing dynamic control environments is whether providing more information leads to better operational decisions. The idea of having every piece of information is increasingly tempting (and in safety critical domains often mandatory) but has become a potential obs...
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48288/ |
| _version_ | 1848797732505911296 |
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| author | Dadashi, Nastaran Golightly, David Sharples, Sarah |
| author_facet | Dadashi, Nastaran Golightly, David Sharples, Sarah |
| author_sort | Dadashi, Nastaran |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | One of the recurring questions in designing dynamic control environments is whether providing more information leads to better operational decisions. The idea of having every piece of information is increasingly tempting (and in safety critical domains often mandatory) but has become a potential obstacle for designers and operators. The present research study examined this challenge of appropriate information design and usability within a railway control setting. A laboratory study was conducted to investigate the presentation of different levels of information (taken from data processing framework, Dadashi et al., 2014) and the association with, and potential prediction of, the performance of a human operator when completing a cognitively demanding problem solving scenario within railways. Results indicated that presenting users only with information corresponding to their cognitive task, and in the absence of other, non task-relevant information, improves the performance of their problem solving/alarm handling. Knowing the key features of interest to various agents (machine or human) and using the data processing framework to guide the optimal level of information required by each of these agents could potentially lead to safer and more usable designs. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:08:33Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-48288 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:08:33Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Springer |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-482882020-05-04T19:19:16Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48288/ Seeing the woods for the trees: the problem of information inefficiency and information overload on operator performance Dadashi, Nastaran Golightly, David Sharples, Sarah One of the recurring questions in designing dynamic control environments is whether providing more information leads to better operational decisions. The idea of having every piece of information is increasingly tempting (and in safety critical domains often mandatory) but has become a potential obstacle for designers and operators. The present research study examined this challenge of appropriate information design and usability within a railway control setting. A laboratory study was conducted to investigate the presentation of different levels of information (taken from data processing framework, Dadashi et al., 2014) and the association with, and potential prediction of, the performance of a human operator when completing a cognitively demanding problem solving scenario within railways. Results indicated that presenting users only with information corresponding to their cognitive task, and in the absence of other, non task-relevant information, improves the performance of their problem solving/alarm handling. Knowing the key features of interest to various agents (machine or human) and using the data processing framework to guide the optimal level of information required by each of these agents could potentially lead to safer and more usable designs. Springer 2017-11-23 Article PeerReviewed Dadashi, Nastaran, Golightly, David and Sharples, Sarah (2017) Seeing the woods for the trees: the problem of information inefficiency and information overload on operator performance. Cognition, Technology and Work, 19 (4). pp. 561-570. ISSN 1435-5566 Human computer interaction; Decision support system; Usability engineering https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10111-017-0451-1 doi:10.1007/s10111-017-0451-1 doi:10.1007/s10111-017-0451-1 |
| spellingShingle | Human computer interaction; Decision support system; Usability engineering Dadashi, Nastaran Golightly, David Sharples, Sarah Seeing the woods for the trees: the problem of information inefficiency and information overload on operator performance |
| title | Seeing the woods for the trees: the problem of information inefficiency and information overload on operator performance |
| title_full | Seeing the woods for the trees: the problem of information inefficiency and information overload on operator performance |
| title_fullStr | Seeing the woods for the trees: the problem of information inefficiency and information overload on operator performance |
| title_full_unstemmed | Seeing the woods for the trees: the problem of information inefficiency and information overload on operator performance |
| title_short | Seeing the woods for the trees: the problem of information inefficiency and information overload on operator performance |
| title_sort | seeing the woods for the trees: the problem of information inefficiency and information overload on operator performance |
| topic | Human computer interaction; Decision support system; Usability engineering |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48288/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48288/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48288/ |