SNJL-LiU Reading Session No.1 - "Attention Support with Soft Visual Cues in Control Room Environments"

About the Speaker:

Magnus Nylin is an Industrial Ph.D. student for the Air Navigation Services of Sweden, LFV. His main interest is in how automation can be designed to improve the total human-automation performance and how to avoid falling into classical automation traps. At LFV, Nylin works as a system engineer with expertise within validation and simulation in air traffic control. (https://liu.se/en/employee/magny39)

Abstract:

In visually demanding environments like working positions in air traffic control, there is a risk of missing important information. Attention support might help to reduce this, but there is a risk that it introduces new issues in the form of distractions or increased visual load. The work presented in this paper explores the concept of Soft Visual Cues, with the aim to make the operator aware of missing information, but doing it discreetly enough only to be noticed when the operator is scanning the area where the information is present, thereby complementing the concepts of attention guidance, alarms, and subtle gaze direction. The qualitative evaluation performed aimed primarily at catching the operators’ (air traffic controllers) first impressions. The focus was on air traffic control but was complemented with vessel traffic service and train control environments and operators. The results from air traffic control showed a preference for symbol property changes related to geometry rather than for colour or opacity changes as soft visual cues. The comparison to the other domains highlighted the contextual dependence, visual context and process context, of the concept.