Laura Millen

A method for involving children with autism in design

COSPATIAL is a 3-year collaborative, technology-focused project exploring the use of collaborative virtual environments (CVE) and shared active surfaces (SAS) for supporting social competence for children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). The UK team are developing CVE technology through a user centered design approach to inform design decisions and review prototype development. Teachers are involved throughout the design process to ensure that the technology developed is useful and effective. Involving children with ASC is also an important aspect of our design process. However, there are few published methods and guidance to support this involvement. This paper presents a method for involving children with ASC in the design of CVE.

Participatory design approach with children with autism

Abstract The COSPATIAL (Communication and social participation: collaborative technologies for interaction and learning) pro-ject explores how we can develop effective and useful educational technologies in the form of shared active surfaces (SAS) and collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) to support the enhancement of social skills for children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). The UK design team comprises of technology developers, design engineers, educational psychologists as well as teachers from both mainstream and autism specialist schools. A user centred design approach is being used to make decisions and review prototype development using CVE technology. The involvement of teachers throughout the entire process is crucial, but in order to understand the primary user further and design optimally it is also desirable to directly involve the end users in the design process. This paper describes the participatory design approach for elicitation of user requirements and CVE design that is being used with typically developing children and how these methods have been adapted to facilitate involvement of children with ASC.

Designing touchpad user-interfaces for vehicles: which tasks are most suitable?

Designers of in-vehicle computing systems must consider which input devices are most suitable for use in the safety-critical driving situation. This paper describes a study aiming to establish which tasks are best supported by an in-vehicle touchpad system. Eighteen participants (50:50 right/left handed) drove three routes in a right-hand drive simulator while following a lead vehicle at a perceived safe distance. At specific points, participants were asked to carry out seven tasks of varying qualities using a prototype touchpad system, a touchscreen or a rotary controller interface. Results indicated that participants were most negative (in terms of preferences and performance) with the rotary controller interface. Conversely, the results for the touchpad versus the touchscreen interfaces were clearly task dependent. For instance, with the touchpad, subjective opinions and objective performance were most positive for tasks in which simple commands enabled drivers to bypass the need for complex menu interactions (e.g. changing the interior temperature). In contrast, results for the touchscreen were evidently superior for simple menu selection tasks (e.g. selecting a preset radio station). Conclusions are drawn regarding the nature of tasks that are best suited to alternative input devices within vehicles and the potential for a touchpad/touchscreen solution.

The Impact of Automation in Rail Signalling Operations

Rail signalling in the UK has seen a move from mechanical lever frame boxes to entry and exit signalling, and on through to situating signallers within a visual display unit-based workstation environment. These developments have taken place in tandem with changes such as making the signallers more remote from their area of control and the introduction of automation. These changes have implications not only at a cognitive level for factors such as workload and situation awareness, but also at an organizational level, such as the shift away from traditional career progression, and the resulting implications for training and the development of expertise. Understanding the implications of the signalling interface and the design implementation of automation is critical in facilitating more effective performance, safety, and signaller well-being, as well as informing the design of future rail control systems. Bainbridge articulated a set of ironies of automation — unintended consequences of introducing automation that may not be beneficial to the overall system effectiveness. The work presented in this article uses a structured observation approach to examine behavioural indicators of the impact of automation, either as a successful tool to support signalling or as a source of some or all of the ironies noted by Bainbridge. The work was conducted over a period of 2 years, to investigate the effect of levels of automation on rail signallers’ activity and workload as part of the EPSRC Rail Research UK B6 programme.

Designing touchpad user-interfaces for right-hand drive vehicles: an investigation into where the touchpad should be located

Touchpads in vehicles offer a range of potential benefits over existing input devices, such as touchscreens. This article describes a study aiming to establish where a touchpad should be located within a right-hand drive vehicle. Sixteen participants (50:50 right/left handed) drove three routes in a right-hand drive simulator while following a lead vehicle at a perceived safe distance. At specific points, participants were asked to carry out three tasks of varying complexity using the touchpad. For each of the routes travelled, the touchpad was positioned in one of the three locations: in the centre console; in the door armrest and in the steering wheel. Differences in the performance and preferences of right-handed people vs. left-handed people were found. Right-handed people rated the door armrest location highly and made few glances towards this location while driving. In contrast, left-handed drivers were more positive towards the centre console location. The steering wheel location required a particularly high-visual demand. It is concluded that, for right-hand drive vehicles, a touchpad should be located in both the centre console and the door armrest to suit the diverse needs of the driver population.

Collaborative technologies for children with autism

The COSPATIAL (Communication and social participation: collaborative technologies for interaction and learning) project explores how we can develop effective and useful educational technologies in the form of shared active surfaces (SASs) and collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) to support the enhancement of social competence skills for children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). This paper presents a description of the COSPATIAL suite of applications, comprising of two CVE programs and two SAS programs.

Systems Change in Transport Control: Applications of Cognitive Work Analysis

Cognitive work analysis (CWA) is a comprehensive and in-depth framework for analyzing cognitive work. In recent years, the framework has received much attention in human factors research and particularly in aviation, air traffic control (ATC) and defense. This article presents the application of CWA in 2 industrial contexts—rail signaling and ATC. The utility of 2 different stages of CWA—work domain analysis and control task analysis—is considered and compared for these contexts. The aim is to show what analyses can be of use to systems designers and operation managers through the application of CWA, in particular how CWA can help in the analysis of the cognitive demands experienced by operators in rail signaling and en-route ATC. We discuss methodological and practical benefits of parallel applications of CWA in 2 transport environments.

Understanding the Impact of Rail Automation

Over the past ten a number of studies have been conducted to understand the way in which rail signalling operations are completed. This paper reviews some of the themes that have emerged from this body of work and considers two principal questions --- firstly, how should we apply human factors methods to develop our understanding of the impact of automation and secondly, how can we link the data we have collected from the rail work to theoretical concepts that will help us to design future automation systems?