Instrument Control

Instrument Control RIA and Interface Design for Mission-Critical Applications

Instrument Control user interfaces enable operators to interact with equipment, robotics, or sensors via an interface rather than mechanical gauges, switches and levers. The user interface design directly affect the operator’s ability and desire to complete a task. Our own work has centered on life-critical, safety-critical and infrastructure-critical control interfaces including medical and biotechnology diagnostic/research equipment, energy and resource monitoring, consumption and compliance systems, aviation control systems, real-time industrial operations, and physical security and network management.

Interfaces that do more than just look good

The design of these interfaces and dashboard displays affect the operator’s ability to monitor/understand the current situation, make decisions, as well as supervise and provide high level commands to automated or robotic systems. To be effective, these interface need to be designed and validated not only to look good (visual design), but to take into account issues around data presentation, decision-making, workload, vigilance, situational awareness, and human error.

Factors in the design of instrument control UI

• Display information as opposed to data
  Just because you think the interface shows it, doesn't mean operators see it, understand it, know how it correlates with their behavior, or feel motivated to take action.
• Determine what to measure and report
  Determine what are the critical pieces of feedback and environmental cues for operators by translating the operators "intuitive" understanding of the real world process and cues into an abstracted software interface.
• Optimize the presentation mode for the task
  Optimize the presentation mode to the type of information the operator needs to perform their tasks and speed reaction times.
• Determine interaction modalities
  Touch, gesture, mouse, keypad, speech? Select the type of interaction that maximizes productivity and intuitive understanding.
• Make the software interfaces as engaging as the real world
  Make the display natural, workflow-useful, and engaging so that operators don't look for ways to workaround the UI.
• Design for high performance
  If an instrument control interface is perceived as slow to respond, it will not be optimally used.
• Integrate social and collaborative tools
  Design interfaces that make it easy to monitor, aggregate, analyze and share information.