Supervisory control of multiple autonomous vehicles raises many issues concerning the balance of system autonomy with human interaction for optimal operator situation awareness and system performance. An unmanned vehicle simulation designed to manipulate the application of automation was used to evaluate participants' performance on image analysis tasks under two automation control schemes: adaptable (level of automation directly manipulated by participant throughout trials) and adaptive (level of automation adapted as a function of participants' performance on four types of tasks). The results showed that while adaptable automation increased workload, it also improved change detection, as well as operator confidence in task-related decision-making.
An automated decision aid can improve team performance under high task load. Assessment of spatial working memory and the communication of task-relevant information can help in operator and team selection in supervisory control systems.
Potential applications of this research include the development of individualized training methods for operators of multi-UV systems and selecting personnel for complex supervisory control tasks.
Many usability software packages exist to serve the needs of user experience practitioners. However, these options are often expensive and possess steep learning curves. The purpose of this paper is to provide novice practitioners a usability toolkit that is easy to use, versatile, and affordable. Using basic presentation software, PowerPoint™, graduate students in a usability and redesign course performed card sorting tasks with several users and used the results to create website prototypes for usability testing. The detailed methods for deploying these usability techniques via PowerPoint™, as well as the benefits of these methods, will be explored.
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