Biomedical subjects

D A Mitta

Publications and source records attributed to D A Mitta.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1995

User productivity as a function of AutoCAD interface design.

Increased operator productivity is a desired outcome of user-CAD interaction scenarios. Two objectives of this research were to (1) define a measure of operator productivity and (2) empirically investigate the potential effects of CAD interface design on operator productivity, where productivity is defined as the percentage of a drawing session correctly completed per unit time. Here, AutoCAD provides the CAD environment of interest. Productivity with respect to two AutoCAD interface designs (menu, template) and three task types (draw, dimension, display) was investigated. Analysis of user productivity data revealed significantly higher productivity under the menu interface condition than under the template interface condition. A significant effect of task type was also discovered, where user productivity under display tasks was higher than productivity under the draw and dimension tasks. Implications of these results are presented.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1995

Improving interface quality: an investigation of human-computer interaction task learning.

User learning is of critical importance in evaluating interface usability (and in turn interface quality). The focus of this research in on interface learnability, where a stochastic model represents the learning process required for successful completion of human-computer interaction tasks. The parameter used to quantify learning is a learning rate. Of interest here is the validation of learning rate as a measure of interface quality. Learning rate was validated against two traditional measures of interface quality: task completion time, and error frequency. SuperCard, a Macintosh project utility, provided an empirical learning environment in which 32 participants learned 16 fundamental SuperCard tasks. Results of correlation analyses suggested the usefulness of learning rate as an indicator of interface quality. Our learning rate analysis identified four tasks presenting learning difficulties. (Analysis of task completion times identified two of these four tasks, and error frequency analysis identified one). Learning rate data captured all of the information available from the two traditional interface quality measures and identified two tasks disregarded by them. Incorporating learning rates in the interface evaluation process precludes time-intensive video tape analysis typically required by more traditional interface quality measures.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

Development of intelligent design associates: a case study.

A number of human factors data sets provides guidelines and recommendations for the system design process. Much of this information is available to the human factors engineer in design handbooks, textbooks, and periodicals. While human factors design information is both available and abundant, it is not necessarily readily accessible or in a format that is easily assimilated into a particular design scenario. This paper discusses the feasibility of incorporating human factors design data into intelligent, knowledge-based systems referred to as design associates. Successful implementation of any design associate is dependent upon two key issues: conversion of human factors data into a valid knowledge base, and overcoming the knowledge representation constraints imposed by an intelligent software tool. Detailed results of a recent effort to address these issues, and subsequently implement a design associate on a commercially available intelligent software tool, are presented. This particular associate, implemented in a rule-based tool environment, aids in the selection of visual display technologies.

Journal Article↗