Multi-disciplinary User Interface Construction: Case FESTO Flexible Assembly Unit

Transcription

1 Multi-disciplinary User Interface Construction: Case FESTO Flexible Assembly Unit Marko Nieminen, Toni Koskinen, Lauri Repokari Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Information Ergonomics Research Group TAI Research Centre, User Interfaces and Usability

2 Mechatronics Devices with Complex User Interfaces Mechatronics devices make extensive use of complex user interfaces that control the functions of the system Devices are more often used by people who are not deeply trained experts The amount of trained experts is not sufficient Human/user-centred design of user interfaces is required in the future (competition, differentiation, ISO 9241, ISO 13407)

3 Environment of the Study Assembly line workers will configure FAU Manual assembly with automated phases Complex products & assembly Users are not experts with computer systems

4 Configuration of the FESTO Flexible Assembly Unit FAU Conveyor line employees need to configure the workstation with appropriate pick and place parameters

5 Configuration of the FESTO Flexible Assembly Unit FAU Starting point: assembly-like programming with an industrial PC C:\>_

6 Research Question/Goal HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY What kind of user interface is required to enable configuration that can be done by the assembly workers? To find a solution for a user interface that would be easy enough to be used by typical assembly line employees Usability goal: "A user that has basic skills in using a word processor in modern graphical user interface environment must be able to perform the configuration with the automatic assembly workstation"

7 Implementation of the Study The goal statement had following effects: The initial prototype of the configuration user interface was targeted to these kinds of people. The initial user interface was kept simple and guiding We were forced to ascertain that our initial assumption of the user population was really realistic: a field study, a user interview was conducted in a real assembly production organisation The basic concepts were to be checked; are all designed concepts (terminology) known by the expected users? The initial user interface was usability tested with the real users

8 Approach and Methods HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Approach: constructive research done with prototypes UI construction Observation of shop-floor activities Interviews for shop-floor employees Questionnaire for shop-floor employees On-site usability evaluation

9 Initial User Interface HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY A guiding wizardlike dialogue for novice users. The other interface emulated a simple spreadsheet for experienced users Based on initial descriptions about users and application enviroment

10 Usability Evaluation HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Users were instructed to input to the system the required parameters of three movable components: pick X, pick Y, pick Z, place X, place Y, place Z, and the name of the component The instructions for the task and numbers of the coordinates were given to the user on a sheet of hand-written paper. This was expected to reflect real settings

11 Usability Questionnaire Structure followed loosely the structure and elements of QUIS (Chin & al. 1988) 18 statements Answering scale 1..9: opposite adjectives at both ends 1. The program is: lousy (1), great (9) 2. The program is: boring (1), inspiring (9) 3. The program is: difficult (1), easy (9) 4. The program is: not efficient (1), efficient (9) 5. The program is: inflexible (1), flexible (9) 6. The program is: displeasing (1), pleasant (9) 7. The symbols in the program are difficult (1) / easy (9) to understand 8. The pictures on the screen are unclear (1) / clear (9) 9. The amount of information on one screen is not enough (1) / too much (9) 10. The layout of the information on the screen is unclear (1) / clear (9) 11. The order of the information presented in the program is unclear (1) / clear (9) 12. The appearance of the program is unpleasant (1) / pleasant (9) 13. The speed of the program was too slow (1) / too fast (9) 14. The input of information to the program was difficult (1) / easy (9) 15. I understood never (1) / all the time (9) what the program was doing 16. Correcting errors that happened while using the program was difficult (1) / easy (9) 17. It was difficult (1) / easy (9) to learn to use the program 18. It was difficult (1) / easy (9) to start using the program

12 Interviews: Training and Cognitive Requirements Training current job and tasks, training, education, work history, and experience with IT devices and applications Cognitive requirements: experience with similar devices and programs, terminology, overall impression about the program (after usability test), different stages in the interaction dialogue, interaction clarity (feedback), learnability, improvement ideas

13 Results: Usability Test HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Consistency between the hand-written paper and the wizard-like user interface was not intuitive for all users, additional information was required Feature level problems When there is more than one component to be saved to the system, the termination of the input task needs to be considered carefully: several users terminated the dialog prematurely end of the wizard-dialogue: the system did not provide feedback about the completion of the data transfer action

14 Results: Usability Questionnaire # Statement Mean Std N Value Dev 1 The program is: lousy (1), great (9) 6,30 1, The program is: boring (1), inspiring (9) 5,50 1, The program is: difficult (1), easy (9) 8,20 1, The program is: not efficient (1), efficient (9) 7,00 0, The program is: inflexible (1), flexible (9) 5,75 1, The program is: displeasing (1), pleasant (9) 6,80 1, The symbols in the program are difficult (1) / easy (9) to understand 8,10 1, The pictures on the screen are unclear (1) / clear (9) 6,20 2, The amount of information on one screen is not enough (1) / too much (9) 5,10 0, The layout of the information on the screen is unclear (1) / clear (9) 7,00 1, The order of the information presented in the program is unclear (1) / clear (9) 7,20 1, The appearance of the program is unpleasant (1) / pleasant (9) 7,00 1, The speed of the program was too slow (1) / too fast (9) 5,50 1, The input of information to the program was difficult (1) / easy (9) 8,20 0, I understood never (1) / all the time (9) what the program was doing 7,90 0, Correcting errors that happened while using the program was difficult (1) / easy 6,57 1, (9) It was difficult (1) / easy (9) to learn to use the program 8,30 0, It was difficult (1) / easy (9) to start using the program 7,30 1,57 10

15 Results: Interview about Training and Cognitive Requirements HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Unclear concepts: Pick-and-place, configuration, parameter, and coordinate. In contradiction to the initial expectations of the representatives of Festo Perception and visualisation of the 3D-coordinate system requires additional consideration Pictures in the system were not clear The text that appears to the screen during the progress of data input was not perceived well enough Novice users preferred the wizard-like input of data whereas experienced users liked the spreadsheet-style user interface

16 Final User Interface Support for different interaction styles 1 Quick without understanding the concepts 2 Learning the concepts while configuring 3 With minor instructions 4 Spreadsheet input for power users no instructions POSTER & DETAILED PRESENTATION AND DEMONSTRATION AVAILABLE!

17 Conclusions HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Multi-disciplinary approach provided a rich picture about the context of use Quantitative and qualitative findings provided support to each other The constructed interface is expected to lead to increased flexibility, reduced costs and saved time when applied in industrial settings Information about user characteristics and context of use contributes to the development of UI in different technical platforms in the future

18 Data for Future Applications PDA, wireless devices

19 More Information HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Additional publications about this issue are available from different perspectives Help as the User Interface for Novice Users (Hailikari & al.) Cognitive Requirements for Pick-and-place Configuration User Interface (Repokari & al.) Method: On-line Protocol Analysis (Repokari & al.) Overall description of the UI construction work: Master s Thesis (Koskinen, T.)