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We have been developing user interface clients as fully integrated support systems. A Work Centered Support System aids work by using direct and indirect, passive and active methods. An important property of WCSS systems is the use of form representations as passive devices to help reduce work complexity while simultaneously aid users in adaptive problem solving. Based on our experience implementing the design of three WCSSs we have distilled a set of three form-based design principles that help insure a work-centered perspective is expressed in the interface and that aid problem solving. These principles connect problem-solving objects with work domain objects at different levels of abstraction, utilize a first-person work ontology, and organize information selection and layout based on problem relationships. This paper describes the principles and uses illustrations from our designs to indicate how they reduce work complexity.
This study examined collaboration in multidisciplinary design teams to identify how such teams can be more effectively supported through information technology. Accordingly we addressed collaboration in terms of information sharing, focusing on four internal processes and six external obstacles impinging on such sharing. Six design experts involved in U.S. Air Force systems acquisition and design were interactively interviewed to elicit their knowledge concerning design team interactions and perceived obstacles to effective information sharing. This knowledge was structured as concept maps-graphical depictions of key concepts and the relational links among them. This knowledge was then categorized with respect to our focal information sharing issues and analyzed for its implications. We summarize these results and conclude by connecting them to emergent trends in information technology.
Information superiority is a strategic goal of the US Air Force. To achieve this goal the Air Force aims to produce a battlespace infosphere that will provide an unprecedented degree of connectivity and availability of raw data and value-added information for warfighter use. The
AbstractInformation superiority is a strategic goal of the US Air Force. To achieve this goal the Air Force aims to produce a battlespace infosphere that will provide an unprecedented degree of connectivity and availability of raw data and value-added information for warfighter use. The essential challenge of the infosphere is to be able to provide the right information, at the right time, in the right form to enable warfighters to take effective, coordinated action. Although the infosphereÕs core web and agent technologies are clearly able to provide a heterogeneous infosphere, improved interface technologies are also needed to address problems of information overload and how to provide support to specific end-users without the support tools themselves becoming an impediment to task performance. We have developed a prototype WorkCentered Support System software client as a means to address these interface issues. The WCSS approach achieves effective support in a software agent environment by blending direct manipulation, work field organization, and decision, collaborative, and product development aiding in a manner that is tailored to both formal and informal characteristics of user work. In this paper we describe the philosophy behind and characteristics of the WCSS technology. We illustrate the technology with a discussion of an interactive WCSS prototype designed to improve support to military airlift mission planners at the headquarter level.
I This work was presented in June, 1926, by Mr. Randall Whitaker as a thesis for the degree of Master of Science. This paper is a report on a part of the cooperative investigation on the factors influencing the keeping quality of eggs in storage which is being carried out by C. K. Powell of the Department of Poultry Husbandry and P. F. Sharp of the Department of Dairy Industry. We wish to express our appreciation to the Department of Poultry Husbandry for furnishing us with the eggs used in this investigation and for aiding us in other ways.
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