Design of Information-Intensive Systems Involving Cognitive Aspects: An Emerging Opportunity for Transdisciplinary Cooperation

Abstract

With the rise of smart systems, ubiquitous computing and cyber-physical systems, informationintensiveness of products increases and users become challenged -possibly even overloaded -with expanding options and possible interactions. The number of possible variations of user-operation sequences can rapidly escalate and for designers it becomes difficult to foresee all possible outcomes, which might include unacceptable performance, failure, and even fatalities. With the objective to reduce the risk of unwanted cognitive effects and to realize a more symbiotic relationship between users and systems, we show how two model-based theories from cognitive science, i.e., cognitive architectures and mental models, can be deployed in the design of these systems. We argue that the deployment of such models requires a transdisciplinary approach in which designers intensively cooperate with cognitive scientists and end users.