Working Minds by Beth Crandall

Author:Beth Crandall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIT Press

III Putting CTA Findings to Use

11 The Role of Cognitive Requirements in System Development

Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) methods are particularly well suited for developing information technology to support cognitive activities, especially the macrocognitive functions described in chapter 8. New information technology promises to improve decision making by speeding up the decisions and making them more accurate and more flexible. New technologies seek to strengthen situation awareness and sensemaking, to increase sensitivity to potential problems, to bolster adaptivity, and to support team coordination. But these technologies can deliver on their promises only if they are designed and engineered to support cognitive functions, which mandates that CTA practitioners learn what those functions are.

To accomplish this, the field of cognitive systems engineering (CSE) has emerged over the past few decades (Hollnagel and Woods 1983; Rasmussen, Pejtersen, and Goodstein 1994) as a merging of the capabilities of CTA researchers (including cognitive scientists and human factors psychologists) and technologists (including design engineers and computer scientists). Cognitive systems engineering blends cognitive science, human factors engineering, and systems engineering. Hoffman et al. (2002) have documented the range of CSE strategies currently in use. Almost all of these strategies depend on some form of CTA. After all, how can you do CSE if you don’t study the demands of the cognitive work that you are trying to support?

Decision-Centered Design (DCD) is one of many CSE methods. Researchers have developed a variety of CSE techniques, such as Cognitive Work Analysis (Vicente 1999), Applied Cognitive Work Analysis (Elm et al. 2003), Situation Awareness-Oriented Design (Endsley, Bolte, and Jones 2003), Use-Centered Design (Flach and Dominguez 1995), Work-Oriented Design (Ehn 1988), Work-Centered Design (Eggleston, Young, and Whitaker 2000), and Cognitively Oriented Task Analysis (Shalin et al. 1997). Each of these approaches seeks to support a full range of cognitive functions. Each advocates the use of some form of CTA. Each faces the challenges of forging partnerships with design teams in order to incorporate cognitive data into the design process. At the same time, each has favored methods and a particular primary focus.

This chapter suggests some ways to use CTA in the system development process. We describe one process—DCD—in some detail in order to provide an illustration of how CTA can be incorporated into a process for designing, developing, and evaluating technologies that are intended to amplify and extend the human ability to make good decisions. It is our intent in this chapter to provide guidance and examples and to help readers find ways to improve the design of information technology rather than to advocate for a particular approach as superior to others.

Let’s start with an example of how researchers have used CTA to formulate a better human-computer interface (HCI).

Design of a New Human-Computer Interface for AWACS Weapons Directors

An early example of designing for decision making was a research project carried out to test cognitive engineering principles, including the benefits of using CTA in interface design (Klein 1998; Klinger and Gomes 1993). The project team focused their work on the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), a flying command post used by the U.

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