APPENDIX 1: DETAILED GUIDANCE
Section 1: Human Factors in Design
Section word count: 1100
a)Provide an overview of your socio-technical interface. This should detail what you are (conceptually) proposing to design and why it is important or necessary. This should include key literature to demonstrate your idea is evidence-based.
You are not required to actually design or build a socio-technical interface or system, but rather conceptually describe it (with the use of diagrams if necessary). Choose something that interests you as you will find it easier to complete the assignment if you are motivated by the topic area. The interface/system can be as simple or complex as you want it to be, as long as you are able to answer all of the different parts of this assignment.
Options to consider include:
- Single technological item (e.g. communication device, technology to support home working)
- Software (e.g. an app, user interface)
- Single physical item/produce (e.g. car seat, office desk)
- Complex socio-technical system (e.g. control room, transport simulator)
- Combination of technical/physical (e.g. new type of transport device)
Your idea can be closely based on something that already exists, but you will need to demonstrate how it is different and enhanced.
Your formative assignment will enable you to provide the lecture team with an overview of your idea and get feedback on its suitability.
You should include some references to literature to support your choice of design (e.g. why it is necessary, why it is important, where does it fill a gap in the market etc.). We would expect that these references come primarily from academic sources (i.e. journal articles and books), although you can also use reputable media sources but do check the quality of the source before including it. Additionally, section 3 of ISO 924-110 (Ergonomics of human-system interaction) has some terms of reference you might want to consider using in your answer.
As a minimum your answer should cover the following areas, but you can include additional information if you think it is relevant:
- Overview of what you are proposing
- Brief description of how it is intended to work (if necessary)
- Provide the context around the proposed interface, i.e. where would it fit into society
- Describe why the interface is necessary or important and how it fills current gap in the market
This website lists 10 principles for good design which might help inspire you and can be used for Question B too: https://www.vitsoe.com/gb/about/good–design
b)Choose three of the interaction principles from ISO 924-110 (Ergonomics of human-system interaction) and describe how they are relevant to your proposed interface.
ISO 924-110 (Ergonomics of human-system interaction) is uploaded as a PDF in the week 1 lecture content on Blackboard or is available via the University’s British Standards Online subscription, accessed via:
- select British Standards Online (BSOL)https://bsol.bsigroup.com/
- in the search box, paste ISO 9241-110:2020
- and click on the BS EN ISO 9241 link (in central box)
- use options on left to view the document/download it
Section 4 of the document provides an overview of the seven principles of interaction, these are described in detail in Section 5; pick three of these to discuss in the context of your interface. In your answer you might want to consider:
- Brief description of the principle and its relevance to your interface
- How the design of your interface will meet the recommendation(s) provided
- Any relationships between the principles you have chosen
We expect more than a regurgitation of the material included in the ISO document, you need to demonstrate how it is applied to your interface and encourage the use of additional references where necessary.
If you feel it is more appropriate for your interface to look at the principles in ISO 9241-112 (Principles for information presentation typically used in ICT) then you can use this document instead, following the same access procedure described above.
c) Describe the demographics of your participants if you were conducting a study to evaluate a performance factor of your interface and explain how you would recruit the participants.
The lecture content from week 2 (Principles of experimental design) will help you answer this question. This question requires you to think about the demographics of your participants if you were to run a study to evaluate an aspect of your interface. The following bullet points are things you might want to consider depending on your interface, not all will be relevant, and you are not limited to only considering these:
- How many would you seek to sample
- Individual demographics (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity, physical characteristics)
- Inclusion/exclusion criteria (e.g. levels of experience)
- How they would be recruited
Marks will be awarded for providing a justification of your choices.
d)Describe the ethical considerations that would need to be made if your interface was to be designed and tested with end users.
The lecture content from week 2 (Research Ethics) will help you answer this question. Your answer should consider general ethical guidelines for conducting studies and specific ethical considerations relevant to your interface under investigation.
A comprehensive summary of research ethics can be found here:
Section 2: Application of a Human Factors Method
Section word count: 600 words
You have covered a number of methods during weeks 3 and 4 of the course, these included; subjective usability questionnaires, heuristic interface evaluation, HTA, SHERPA and link/layout analysis. You can choose one of these methods, or any of the methods described in the Human Factors Methods books, to complete this section.
Detailed procedural guidance of the methods covered in class (and additional ones) can be found in the Human Factors Method book:
If you have proposed a relatively simple interface (e.g. a physical thing, an app etc.) you will be able to apply your chosen method to your whole interface. If you have proposed something more complex (e.g. control room) you might just want to apply your chosen method to part of the interface or apply an accident analysis method (these can be found in this book: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sotonebooks/detail.action?docID=797521).
You can also use online search engines (and the references provided in your lecture notes) to look at some examples of how these methods have been applied to other examples.
You only need to choose ONE method, you will not get extra marks for applying multiple methods, this might in fact reduce your mark as you will not have room to describe everything accurately, aim for quality over quantity.
Include as many outputs as you think are necessary, and these might be in different forms such as diagrams, tables, charts or text. Ensure you include the most relevant output for your method by following the procedural guidance provided in the textbook links. Your summary (question d) should refer back to the output(s) and describe what you have found and/or implications of the results.
Section 3: Cognitive Human Factors
Section word count: 1100
Part a) Identify the organisations and entities that are relevant to your interface and place them at the appropriate levels of the system using the Actor Map diagram and give an example of how failure might propagate through the system.
Week 5 lecture content is most relevant to helping you answer this question. You were introduced to the Accimap method, of which the Actor Map diagram is part of this.
You will need to present your answer using the Actor Map template below and populate the ‘relevant organisations and entities’ column with the different organisations or groups that are related to your proposed interface. It is advisable to record the organisations in each row horizontally (rather than a vertical list, see the examples in the links below) as this will enable you to show connections for the second part of the question. PowerPoint or Visio are suitable programs to use to create your diagram.
| Actor Map level | Relevant organisations and entities |
| International committees | |
| National committees | |
| Central Government | |
| Regulators, Associations | |
| Industry, Local Government | |
| Resource providers | |
| End users | |
| Equipment and environment |
Example Actor Maps are provided in week 5 lecture notes and these papers:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457518306250(see supplementary material)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457516304535?casa_token=UogCA1_BCPUAAAA A:eNXQcfxlgozFrnn1Ge6YZtcSYFCkvIq6R1J78QsxC6L0NSSb8Rt7MM0Vszt1WXCRQGH85–QyDQ
(see Figure 2, page 6).
There is not always a clear answer about who should be included or what level they should be included at, so you will be awarded marks on your general approach to completing the Actor Map. You might want to start this activity by brainstorming all of the relevant organisations you can think of (use web searchers and the literature you read to complete part 1 of the assignment to help you) and then putting them into the different levels of the Actor Map.
The second part of this activity requires you to demonstrate how failure can propagate through your system; whatever type of interface or system you have proposed there will always be an opportunity for failure (think back to lecture 3 when you demonstrated the potential errors in conducting simple household tasks). In week 5 you learnt how the organisations responsible for the failures involved in the Alton Towers Smiler Ride accident could be shown on the Actor Map, you need to do this for your interface. It is up to you how you illustrate your answer, you might wish to annotate your current Actor Map and highlight the organisations and links for one type of potential failure, or you might wish to produce another Actor Map and just include the relevant organisations (with links between them). Ensure this part of your answer includes:
- Definition of the potential failure
- Highlight the organisations who might be responsible or impacted (include the links between them, remember they can be vertical and horizontal)
- Provide a brief explanation of the output, i.e. how does this failure propagate through the system and who/what is responsible
Part b) Describe how your interface would support a user’s awareness of its state, mode, or awareness of the wider environment.
Week 6 lecture content is most relevant to helping you answer this question.
A system or interface must provide a user with information about its current state or mode. What is it doing right now? The kinds of things you should think about include:
- What kind of information will be provided?
- When will that information be provided?
- To whom will it provided (if more than one user / target audience)?
- In what format will it be provided (visually, or could it be auditory or haptic presentation)?
- How will the information be designed (think about colour, size, frequency, amplitude, etc.)?
The user’s awareness is something that can be constantly updated through the interface’s design, or in instalments, for example with regular status reports. Think about how your system will do this. Does the design itself reveal what mode it is in (for example a chair, in positions of reclination)? Or is some display required (such as in a heating system to indicate the set temperature)?
If your interface provides a representation of an environment or system, such as a power plant control room, or the sonar display of a military submarine, how does it present to the user information about the environment’s status? Among other things, you should think about:
- What level of detail is required? Does this change with situation / context / user?
- What does the operator / user really need to know? Think about cognitive underload / overload
- What other things might the user be attending to, and how might that affect how situation awareness could or should be supported?
- When would information be presented? Would it be continuous, or a fixed or changing schedule?
As we have emphasised throughout the course, try to think beyond the individual user and include considerations of the wider system; nothing exists in isolation, and system failure is caused by a web of interdependent contributory factors (remember the content on complex systems in week 7). How does the users’ situation awareness, as supported by your interface, fit into, affect, and get affected by the wider sociotechnical system within which it resides? For example, the driver of the automated vehicle may have excellent situation awareness of the state of their own vehicle, as supported by a very well designed invehicle interface; but what about other road users whose behaviour will be influenced by the vehicle’s movements?
Part c) Describe and evaluate the relevance of automation to your interface/system
Week 7 lecture content is the most relevant to helping you answer this question. Depending on your proposed interface, automation may or may not be an essential component of it, but whichever is the case you should explain why or why not. We would still expect this answer to include an evaluation of automation, even if not related directly to your interface. The questions below are things for you to think about that will help guide your answer. You don’t need to address all of them, rather focus on the most relevant for your interface.
- It is possible that it is not relevant now, but it could be in the future?
- Are there other related systems characterised by automation that affect or are affected by your interface?
- Would automation help the user?
- Would automation help others?
- Could automation be a hindrance to performance?
- What additional requirement would automation bring in terms of user situation awareness? For example, how would it keep the user in the loop?
- What wider implications does automation have beyond its effect on the individual user, group of users, or task or activity at hand?
- How much of the task or activity could be automated? How would this affect user engagement?
- Would there be issues of vigilance?
Think creatively; even a simple, physical interface such as an office stapler could have automation built in. For example, could the stapler automatically detect if the wrong staples have been inserted? Or recognise the thickness and type of the paper that the user is intending to staple, and select the appropriate force to be applied? Perhaps it could be connected wirelessly to the stationary shop and order you more staples to be delivered upon detection that its cartridge or holder is depleted.
Equally, in a complex system, automation may not always be helpful. Imagine the control desk of a nuclear power plant; with excessive automation that is not well designed, the operators could be kept out of the loop. In the event of malfunction, or a situation not foreseen by the system’s designers, manual input could be required. In that scenario, the operators may not be equipped with the required knowledge, rules, or skills to perform the necessary actions.
Even if automation is not required or not suitable for your interface, you should explain why in terms of the points made above. Try to think beyond the individual user and include considerations of the wider system; nothing exists in isolation, and system failure is caused by a web of interdependent contributory factors. How does automation fit into, affect, and get affected by the wider sociotechnical system within which it resides? For example, the office stapler; if stationary is usually bought in bulk in large orders, what does piecemeal ordering of small batches of staples do to the office ordering economy? Who controls the finances behind stationary orders, and would they want staples to be ordered separately?
Section 4: Physical Human Factors
Section word count: 1100
The assignment should include following key contents:
- Identify the aspects of your design related to the physical factors of your interface.
- Describe the design principles that could be used to improve the physical performance of your design.
- Evaluate the relevant importance of the physical factors to your interface.
- Propose the methods to mitigate the adverse effects of these factors. Discuss areas of variability and assumptions in your proposed methods and suggest how these can be controlled.
The physical factors that can be considered in this assignment includes:
- Anthropometry (i.e. the physical size of the potential user group of your interface);
- Vibration (i.e. the comfort, performance and health of interface users);
- Motion sickness (i.e. the sickness due to the usage of your interface under specific visual or motion conditions).
You can choose the most relevant factor to develop your argument based on the hardware or applications of the interface that your identified, or discuss all of them if relevant.
For example, if you have chosen to design a software that would be applied to navigation in automated driving, then this software will be applied to an automated vehicle and riding comfort will be one of the key design aspects that should be considered in your design. Then it is sensible to include some features in your software to monitor the vibration that the user will experience and furthermore, if your software could have features linked with the route design of your journey to avoid traffic jams or bad road conditions, this will reduce the motion sickness incidences for the vehicle users. If you have chosen to design a new VR (virtual reality) headset, then it is important to think how the system could fit the physical size of your targeted user group. Where you can obtain the anthropometric data for your user group, how you set up your design criteria, what features that you could add to the current design to make the size flexible to meet the maximum user requirements, etc. The motion sickness experienced while using the VR has been reported by lots of users, is it possible to add certain features to at least monitor the incidence and based on the sensitivity of your user to present a warning message?
Relevant standards (available on Blackboard):
- BS 6841:1987 Guide to measurement and evaluation of human exposure to whole-body mechanical vibration and repeated shock
- ISO 2631-1:1997 Mechanical vibration and shock – evaluation of human exposure to whole-body vibration – Part 1: General requirements
Most credit will be awarded for an appropriate demonstration of understanding and discussion. It is recommended that you refer to the lecture handouts, relevant standards, and the following textbooks:
- Handbook of Human Vibration (Griffin, 1990)
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780123030405/handbook–of–human–vibration)
- Bodyspace: Anthropometry, Ergonomics and the design of work (Pheasant, 2006)
(https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton–ebooks/detail.action?docID=170291)
Do make use of graphs and tables to support your answers.
Section 5: Environmental Human Factors
Section word count: 1100
The assignment should include following key contents:
- Identify the aspects of your design related to the environmental factors of your interface.
- Describe the design principles that could be used to improve the environmental performance of your design.
- Evaluate the relevant importance of the environmental factors to your interface.
- Propose the methods to mitigate the adverse effects of these factors. Discuss areas of variability and assumptions in your proposed methods and suggest how these can be controlled.
The environmental factors that should be considered in this assignment includes:
- Visual (i.e. factors influence visual comfort and visual performance of your interface users, how to change the lighting to improve the visual comfort and performance);
- Thermal (i.e. key parameters measuring the thermal condition and how to access the thermal comfort of your interface users);
- Acoustic (i.e. the effects of noise exposure to interface users, how to access acoustic comfort and sound quality and the design principles could be used to acoustic performance of the interface).
You can choose the most relevant factor to develop your argument based on the hardware or applications of the interface that your identified. You can further analyse the interaction between these environmental factors and they can mask or enhance the performance of each other.
For example, if you have chosen to design a software that would be applied to navigation in automated driving, then this software will be applied to an automated vehicle. Your software should include some features to monitor the thermal and acoustic conditions inside the vehicle. Is it possible to include some machine learning features to automatically adjust the thermal setting based on the air temperature outside the vehicle and users’ preferences and needs? Is it possible to adjust the audio system inside the vehicle to mask the acoustic noise generated from the engine or road surface? If you have chosen to design a new VR (virtual reality) headset, then it is important to think how the system could provide the visual and acoustic feedback to the interface users to simulate the required environment. Furthermore, what features could be added to make sure the long period of use of the system won’t induce any injury to users’ vision and hearing. Key references:
- Buratti, C., Belloni, E., Merli, F., and Ricciardi, P. A new index combining thermal, acoustic, and visual comfort of moderate environments in temperate climates. Building and Environment, 2018; 139:27-37.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036013231830249X?casa_token=eO7ze
FC74OcAAAAA:_TMVuMZU3CMsHOvmdMDsJ53E313fgcrXDBrQVTllLBGjPM5irPRs 9WeJmSGgUK74BIAsi2pB)
- Basner, M., Babisch, W., Davis, A., Brink, M., Clark, C., Janssen, S., Stansfeld, S. Auditory and nonauditory effects of noise on health. Lancet. 2014, 383(9925): 1325-1332.
(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24183105/)
- Crocker, M.J. (editor). Handbook of noise and vibration control. John Wiley and Sons (2007).
(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9780470209707)
Most credit will be awarded for an appropriate demonstration of understanding and discussion. It is recommended that you refer to the lecture handouts, relevant papers, and the Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics (Salvendy, 1990) (https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sotonebooks/detail.action?docID=817338). Do make use of graphs and tables to support your answers.
Appendix 2: Mark Scheme
Student:
Total mark:
| This work would have been most improved by: |
| The best thing about this work is: |
| Very poor (<40) | Poor (40-49) | Adequate (50-59) | Good (60-69) | Excellent (70+) | Comments | |
| Part 1: Human Factors Design (15%) | ||||||
| Description of idea proposed | ||||||
| Evidence of reading around the topic area | ||||||
| Relevance of demographics for target audience | ||||||
| Description of interaction principles | ||||||
| Application of knowledge to define general and specific ethical principles | ||||||
| Part 2: Application of Human Factors Method (20%) | ||||||
| Justification of chosen method | ||||||
| Quality of method output | ||||||
| Accuracy of method output | ||||||
| Summary of findings from method application | ||||||
| Part 3: Cognitive Human Factors (20%) | ||||||
| Quality of Actor Map | ||||||
| Accuracy of Actor Map | ||||||
| Description of failure propagation | ||||||
| Application of knowledge to discuss situation awareness | ||||||
| Application of knowledge to discuss relevance of automation | ||||||
| Part 4: Physical Human Factors (20%) | ||||||
| Description of design aspects that related to physical factors | ||||||
| Evidence of reading around the topic area | ||||||
| Description of design principles used to improve system performance | ||||||
| Application of knowledge to discuss physical factors | ||||||
| Part 5: Environmental Human Factors (20%) | ||||||
| Description of design aspect that related to environmental factors | ||||||
| Evidence of reading around the topic area | ||||||
| Description of design principles used to improve system performance | ||||||
| Application of knowledge to discuss environmental factors | ||||||
| Presentation, standard of English, and referencing (5%) | ||||||
| Quality of presentation | ||||||
| Standard of English | ||||||
| Correct referencing |