A Human Factors Evaluation of Illinois Compass
Esa Rantanen (Assistant Professor, Psychology, Aviation)
A major part of the decision by CITES to implement Illinois Compass was
because the underlying software provided great flexibility to the instructor
for the display and organization of course materials and activities. This
flexibility allows instructors to design and deliver more pedagogically
innovative course sites than did earlier systems supported by CITES Educational
Technologies. Despite these advances, there are still areas that need to
be improved in the continuing development of the software. At this Brown Bag, Esa Rantanen of the Aviation Department discussed the
ways in which the software succeeds or needs improvement based on a human
factors analysis.
Presentation Summary
Professor Rantanen began his presentation with an extensive overview of the theory
and philosophy behind human factors analysis. As a starting point
to describe human factors, Professor Rantanen used a definition
from a 1988 article in the Human Factors Society Bulletin by J. Mark Christensen, D. A. Topmiller and R.T. Gill. The authors contend that,"Human
Factors is that branch of science and technology that includes
what is known and theorized of about human behavioral and biological
characteristics that can be validly applied to the specification,
design, evaluation, operation, and maintenance of products and
systems to enhance safe, effective, and satisfying use by individuals,
groups, and organizations."
Professor Rantanen feels that this definition concisely points to the two
primary areas of concern of human factors designers. First, by
putting humans into the center of design, human factors promotes
creating systems that are ergonomically sound and physically compatible
with people. Second, and, to Professor Rantanen, more importantly,
human factors considers the role that humans have in relation to
the goals of the system. The primary goal of designers using human
factors is not, as Professor Rantanen pointed out, focused on
productivity or economic metrics. Rather, human factors designers
consider that economic, productivity and other related metrics
will necessarily be improved by good design.
Professor Rantanen claims that due to these areas of concern, human factors
focuses more on the role of people in relation to the system rather
than on the system itself. He argues that by focusing on the role, “design
objectives should be to support humans to achieve the operational
objectives for which they are responsible.” He
summed up this idea by discussing what the purpose of an airline pilot
is. Contrary to common sense, the role is not to fly the airplane
that takes people from point A to point B. Instead, for human factors,
the purpose of the airplane is to support the pilot, whose responsibility
is to take people from A to B.
A Human Factors Analysis of Compass
After providing the overview of human factors principles, Professor Rantanen
described how he used Illinois Compass as an example system in
his human factors class. Professor Rantanen has used online systems
in his teaching for a number of years and used Compass in its first
semester of general campus use. In addition to using the system
for teaching, he had his students in the AVI/PSYC 358/IE 340 “Human
Factors” course
perform a human factors analysis of the system as a class project.
Professor Rantanen encouraged students to post anecdotal information
to a discussion board. In addition, a group of students proposed
a redesign of the system for a group project. While the students
took this project very seriously, Professor Rantanen remarked
that, “this evaluation was far from thorough and only anecdotal
data could be gathered.”
His students reported that Compass was quite “a feature-rich system
and consequently quite complex.” The complexity of the system had
three main consequences. The first consequence was that the complexity increased
learning time and training needs. This problem is compounded by large turnaround
at the University that ensures that there will be a large proportion of
new users each semester. The second concern is that the complexity
will lead users to underuse or disuse many of the potentially useful features.
Finally, the complexity could lead to “a decrease in user acceptance
and satisfaction.”
The reduction of complexity was the main goal of the redesign team. They
came up with a simple and intuitive goal for lowering complexities;
to reduce navigation through multiple pages when performing simple actions.
In implementing this general goal, the students had four suggestions:
- Place
the Compass web site login link on the University web site, www.uiuc.edu.
The link should take a student or faculty member directly to
the login page to save time clicking “Login” multiple
times.
- Clearly differentiate links to the Compass home page (class list), and
specific course home pages with consistent placing of the
links.
- Use of dropdown boxes containing course-specific “requests”
ordered on the left side of the toolbar, from left to right.
- Add a “GO” button to the right of the dropdown boxes
to allow for correction of errors.
In the question and answer session following the presentation,
it was made clear that several of the design problems and specific
difficulties uncovered during the period of this test have been
improved or corrected in subsequent versions of Illinois Compass.
About Esa Rantanen
Professor Rantanen is an assistant Professor in the Aviation Department.
His teaching and research focus on human factors in aviation systems, human
performance measurement and modeling, mental workload, decision making,
and human error and reliability. He has been teaching at the University
of Illinois since 2000. For more about professor Rantanen and his research,
please see his web site at: http://www.humanfactors.uiuc.edu/people/esa-home.html
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