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Information Displays
There are numerous circumstances where people are provided
with information via displays. These are usually visual but
can also be audio as are becoming common in cars.
The enhancements in display technology, particularly with computer
display screens, and the subsequent development of head/helmet
mounted displays, has provided designers with the ability to
present a vast amount of data simultaneously to the operator.
This often leads to cognitive overload and a reduction in operator
performance.
Digital Verses Analogue
Digital displays can provide a very detailed level of information.
This is often superfluous as the operator only needs to know
an approximate value, and normally only when something is wrong.
Digital displays have been tried by car manufacturers for many
years but they generally fail to outperform analogue gauges
where drivers are not given the exact value, but rather an
approximate value. An over-riding factor for the use of analogue
dials is that they are understood very quickly by the position
of the needle (not the specific value), rather than having
to read a number and comprehend its meaning as required by
digital displays. Where a number of parameters have to be rapidly
checked, it is far quicker to scan the position of the needle
on a number of dials, rather than a series of numbers displayed
digitally. Also the dials should normally be set up so that
the correct value is shown when the needle is vertical, low
values are shown to the left (anticlockwise) and high values
to the right (clockwise).
Many boat displays (dashboards) are of particularly poorly design. An
article on the problems of boat dashboards, and examples of good practice
can be found in an article by Charles Husick, entitled 'Designing an
Instrument Panel' (Professional Boat Builder, No. 65 (June/July 2000), pp
33-37).
Further discussion on some of the issues surrounding specific
display applications are highlighted on the flowing pages:
Cars
Aircraft
Boats
Tactile displays
An alternative to visual and audio displays are tactile displays.
These are relatively new, but the concept has been around for
thousands of years. Tactile displays are very intuitive and
ideal for displaying orientation and navigation information.
If someone taps you on the shoulder from behind you intuitively
know the direction it is from. To identify the direction from
a visual display would require cognitive processing of the
information and reduce the persons performance. Further information
on tactile displays can be found here |
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