Tech Report

The Cognitive Ergonomics of Knowledge-Based Design Support Systems

Critiquing systems are a type of active, knowledge-based design support system. They propose to positively influence designers' cognitive processes by pointing out potential problems and contentious issues while designers work. To investigate the effects such systems have on the activities of professional designers, a design environment containing a critiquing system was designed, built, and evaluated for a specific area: phone-based interface design. Four professional designers were observed using the environment to solve realistic design tasks. Our protocol analyses indicate that such systems do influence the behavior of designers, but often indirectly. Designers were observed anticipating the activity of the system and taking preventative steps to avoid it. Differential effects depending on the designers' level of domain experience were also observed. Overall, the system was better suited to the needs of highly experienced designers.

Publication(s)

In the Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI '97), Atlanta (March 22-27), 1997, pp. 83-90.

ID: kmi-96-16

Date: 1996

Author(s): Tamara Sumner, Nathalie Bonnardel and Benedikte Harstad

Resources:
Download PDF

View By

Other Publications

Latest Seminar
Microsoft Research Cambridge

Actions and their Consequences: Implicit Interactions with Machine Learned Knowledge Bases

More Details

CONTACT US

Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1908 653800

Fax: +44 (0)1908 653169

Email: KMi Support

COMMENT

If you have any comments, suggestions or general feedback regarding our website, please email us at the address below.

Email: KMi Development Team