A Unit Task Simulator for Off-Line Evaluation of Man/Computer Interfaces

Abstract

A method is shown for simulating individual operator man/computer tasks and collecting performance statistics. This method employs a minicomputer with structured software that receives user-written programs for the specific processes and for display formatting. Users can easily try out and evaluate alternative interface designs, different combinations of task assignments, or various formatting dialogues. Job and task performance characteristics are directly obtained. An illustration is given. These performance characteristics may be used comparatively or as inputs to a total system simulation for the design of large man/machine systems.

Man/Computer versus Automatic Scheduling

“…One of the most robust and successful of these heuristics was employed in this study for the automatic scheduling method. Several investigators of interactive scheduling methods recommend this approach to scheduling on the basis of their studies [1,11,13,15,16,19]. However, none of these previous studies made specific contrasts between the automatic versus the interactive man/computer approach and the study below serves to fill part of this void.…”