Displays

Typically human-made artifacts designed to support the

perception of relevant system variables and facilitate the
further processing of that information.

A speedometer in a car; a warning tone in an aircraft, a

message on the phone-based menu system, an
instruction panel on an automatic teller, a steam gauge in
an industrial plant, and fine print on an application form.
Are all examples of displays, in various modalities, conveying
various forms of information used in various tasks.

The concept of the display is often closely linked with that of

the graphical user interface (GUI), although the former often
includes text, while the GUI typically describes graphics and
often includes the controls and responses used to
manipulate the display.

The display acts as a medium between some aspects of the

actual information in a system (or action requested of the
operator) and the operator's perception and awareness of what
the system is doing, what needs to be done, and how the
system functions (the mental model).

We first describe 13 key human factors principles .in the

design of displays.

Then we describe different categories of tasks for which

displays are intended, illustrating various applications of the 13
principles.
Key components in display design. A system generates information,
some of which must be processed by the operator to. perform a task.

That necessary information (but only that information) is presented on a

display and formatted according to principles in such a way that it will
support perception, situation awareness, and understanding.

Often, this understanding is facilitated by an accurate mental model of

the displayed process.

It is possible to classify displays along at least three different

dimensions:

• their physical properties,

• the tasks they are designed to support, and

• the properties of the human user that dictate the best

mapping between display and task.

There are differences in the physical implementation of the display

device.

One may think of these as the physical tools that the designer has to
work with in creating a display.

For example, a display may use color or monochrome, visual or

auditory modality; a 3-D display may use stereo; the relative location
of display elements may be changed and so on.
However, before fabricating a display, the designer must
ascertain the nature of the task the display is intended to
support: Is it navigating, controlling, decision making, learning,
and so forth?

Organized around displays to support these various tasks, as

we see how different display tools may be optimally suited for
different tasks.

However, defining the task is only a first step.

Once the task and its goals are identified (e.g., designing a
map to help a driver navigate from point A to point B) we must
do a detailed information analysis to identify what the operator
needs to know to carry out the task.

Finally, and most important, no single display tool is best

suited for all tasks because of characteristics of the human
user who must perform those tasks.

For example, a digital display that is best for reading of the

exact value of an indicator, is not good for assessing at a
quick glance the approximate rate of change and value of
the indicator.

The key mediating factor that determines the best mapping

between the physical form of the display and the task
requirements is a series of principles of human perception
and information processing.

These principles are grounded in the strengths and

weaknesses of human perception, cognition, and
performance.
THIRTEEN PRINCIPLES OF DISPLAY DESIGN

Perceptual Principles

1. Make displays legible (or audible). This guideline is not new. It

integrates nearly all of the information on visual and auditory
especially, relating to issues such as contrast, visual angle,
illumination, noise, masking, and so forth. Legible displays are
necessary, although not sufficient, for creating usable displays.
The same is true for audible displays. Once displays are legible,
additional perceptual principles should be applied.

2. Avoid absolute judgment limits. We do not require the operator to

judge the level of a represented variable on the basis of a single
sensory variable, like color, size, or loudness, which contains more
than five to seven possible levels. To require greater precision as in
a color-coded map with nine hues is to invite errors of judgment.

Four perceptual
principles of display
design: (a) absolute
judgment; (b) top-
down processing (a
tendency to
perceive as “D
should be on”); (c)
redundancy gain;
and (d) similarity <>
confusion.
3. Top-down processing. People perceive and interpret
signals in accordance with what they expect to perceive on
the basis of their past experience. If a signal is presented that
is contrary to expectations, like the warning or alarm for an
unlikely event, then more physical evidence of that signal
must be presented to guarantee that it is interpreted
correctly. Sometimes expectancies are based on long-term
memory.

4. Redundancy gain. When the viewing or listening conditions

are degraded, a message is more likely to be interpreted
correctly when the same message is expressed more than once.
This is particularly true if the same message is presented in
alternative physical forms (e.g., tone and voice, voice and print,
print and pictures, color and shape); that is, redundancy is not
simply the same as repetition. When alternative physical forms
are used, there is a greater chance that the factors that might
degrade one form (e.g., noise degrading an auditory message)
will not degrade the other (e.g., printed text).

5. Discriminability. Similarity causes confusion: Use

discriminable elements. Similar appearing signals are likely
to be confused either at the time they are perceived or after
some delay if the signals must be retained in working
memory before action is taken. What causes two signals to
be similar is the ratio of similar features to different features
(Tversky, 1977). Thus, AJB648 is more similar to AJB658
than is 48 similar to 58, even though in both cases only a
single digit is different. Where confusion could be serious,
the designer should delete unnecessary similar features
and highlight dissimilar (different) ones in order to create
distinctiveness.
Mental Model Principles

6. Principle of pictorial realism (Roscoe, 1968). A

display should look like (i.e., be a picture of) the variable
that it represents. Thus, if we think of temperature as
having a high and low value, a thermometer should be
oriented vertically. If the display contains multiple
elements, these elements can sometimes be configured in
a manner that looks like how they are configured in the
environment that is represented (or how the operator
conceptualizes that environment).

7. Principle of the moving part (Roscoe, 1968). The moving

element(s) of any display of dynamic information should move in
a spatial pattern and direction that is compatible with the user's
mental model of how the represented element actually moves in
the physical system. Thus, if a pilot thinks that the aircraft moves
upward when altitude is gained, the moving element on an
altimeter should also move upward with increasing altitude.

Principles Based on Attention

8. Minimizing information access cost. There is typically a

cost in time or effort to "move" selective attention from one
display location to another to access information. An
operator can waste valuable time going from one page to
the next in the book and visually scanning from there to the
instrument panel. The information access cost may also
include the time required to proceed through a computer
menu to find the correct "page." Thus, good designs are
those that minimize the net cost by keeping frequently
accessed sources in a location in which the cost of traveling
between them is small. One direct implication of minimizing
access cost is to keep displays small so that little scanning
is required to access all information. Such a guideline should
be employed carefully however, because very small size can
degrade legibility.
 9. Proximity compatibility principle (Wickens &
Carswell, 1995).
Sometimes, two or more sources of information are related
to the same task and must be mentally integrated to
complete the task (e.g., a graph line must be related to its
legend, or the plant layout must be related to the warning
indicator meanings); that is, divided attention between the
two Information sources for the one task is necessary.
These information sources are thereby defined to have
close mental proximity. As described in principle 8, good
display design should provide the two sources with close
display proximity so that their information access cost will
be low (Wickens·& Carswell, 1995).

The proximity compatibility principle. (a) Five examples of close

display proximity on the left that will be helpful for tasks requiring
integration of information in the two sources shown. These are
contrasted with examples of separated, or distant, display pairs on the
right.
However, too much close display proximity is not
always
good, particularly if one of the elements must be the
subject of focused attention.

The clutter of overlapping images makes their individual

perception hard. In this--case of focused attention, close
proximity may be harmful, and it is better for the
sources to be more separated.

The "lower mental proximity" of the focused attention

task is then best served by the "low display proximity" of
separation.

Thus, the two types of proximity, display and mental,

are compatibly related: If mental proximity is high
(divided attention for integration), then display proximity
should also be high (close). If mental proximity is low
(focused attention), the display proximity can, and
sometimes should, be lower.

10. Principle of multiple resources.

As we discussed in previous chapters, sometimes
processing a lot of information can be facilitated by
dividing that information across resources-presenting
visual and auditory information concurrently, for
example, rather than presenting all information visually
or auditorily.