Analysis Of 4.2 Shneiderman's Eight Golden Rules
4.2 Shneiderman's eight golden rules
Referring to Appendix 1, the assembly robot user interface violated each and every golden rule in multitudinous ways. I shall only discuss a few instances of rule violation in this paper, leaving a more detailed discussion of these violations for future articles and my forthcoming book. I will emphasize those violations which were relevant to this particular accident.
1. Strive for consistency
There were many violations of consistency in the Robbie CX30 user interface. Error messages could appear in almost any color and could be accompanied by almost any kind of musical effect. Error messages could appear almost anywhere at the screen.
When Bart Matthews saw the error message for the exceptional condition …show more content…
Enable frequent users to use shortcuts
This principle does not appear in any way in the entire interface design. For example, it would have been a good idea to allow frequent users to enter the first letter of a submenu or menu choice in lieu of requiring the use of the cursor keys and the enter key to effect a menu choice. The menu selection mechanism in this system must have been quite a mental strain on the operator.
Furthermore, a form of type-ahead should have been supported, which would have allowed a frequent user to enter a sequence of menu choices without having to wait for the actual menus to appear.
3. Offer informative feedback
In many cases, the user has no idea whether a command that was entered is being processed. This problem is exaggerated by inconsistencies in the user-interface design. In some cases the operator is given detailed feedback concerning what the robot is doing. In other cases the system is mysteriously silent. In general, the user is led to expect feedback and consequently becomes confused when no feedback is given. There is no visual representation of the robot and its environment at the screen and the operator's view of the robot is sometimes …show more content…
There were many features of this interface which make the operator feel that there is an enormous gap between the operator console and the robot itself, whereas a good interface design would have made the user interface transparent and would have given the robot operator a feeling of being in direct contact with the robot. In one case, I commanded the robot to move a widget from the acid bath to the drying chamber and it took 20 seconds before the robot seemed to respond. Thus, I did not feel like I was controlling the robot. The robot's delayed response along with the lack of informative feedback at the computer screen made me feel that the robot was an autonomous agent- an unsettling feeling to say the
Referring to Appendix 1, the assembly robot user interface violated each and every golden rule in multitudinous ways. I shall only discuss a few instances of rule violation in this paper, leaving a more detailed discussion of these violations for future articles and my forthcoming book. I will emphasize those violations which were relevant to this particular accident.
1. Strive for consistency
There were many violations of consistency in the Robbie CX30 user interface. Error messages could appear in almost any color and could be accompanied by almost any kind of musical effect. Error messages could appear almost anywhere at the screen.
When Bart Matthews saw the error message for the exceptional condition …show more content…
Enable frequent users to use shortcuts
This principle does not appear in any way in the entire interface design. For example, it would have been a good idea to allow frequent users to enter the first letter of a submenu or menu choice in lieu of requiring the use of the cursor keys and the enter key to effect a menu choice. The menu selection mechanism in this system must have been quite a mental strain on the operator.
Furthermore, a form of type-ahead should have been supported, which would have allowed a frequent user to enter a sequence of menu choices without having to wait for the actual menus to appear.
3. Offer informative feedback
In many cases, the user has no idea whether a command that was entered is being processed. This problem is exaggerated by inconsistencies in the user-interface design. In some cases the operator is given detailed feedback concerning what the robot is doing. In other cases the system is mysteriously silent. In general, the user is led to expect feedback and consequently becomes confused when no feedback is given. There is no visual representation of the robot and its environment at the screen and the operator's view of the robot is sometimes …show more content…
There were many features of this interface which make the operator feel that there is an enormous gap between the operator console and the robot itself, whereas a good interface design would have made the user interface transparent and would have given the robot operator a feeling of being in direct contact with the robot. In one case, I commanded the robot to move a widget from the acid bath to the drying chamber and it took 20 seconds before the robot seemed to respond. Thus, I did not feel like I was controlling the robot. The robot's delayed response along with the lack of informative feedback at the computer screen made me feel that the robot was an autonomous agent- an unsettling feeling to say the