Driving automation: Learning from aviation about design philosophies

Full vehicle automation is predicted to be on British roads by 2030 (Walker et al., 2001). However, experience in aviation gives us some cause for concern for the 'drive-by-wire' car (Stanton and Marsden, 1996). Two different philosophies have emerged in aviation for dealing with the human factor: hard vs. soft automation, depending on whether the computer or the pilot has ultimate authority (Hughes and Dornheim, 1995). This paper speculates whether hard or soft automation provides the best solution for road vehicles, and considers an alternative design philosophy in vehicles of the future based on coordination and cooperation

Concept generation for persuasive design

Designing ‘persuasive’ products and services for social benefit often involves adopting and adapting principles and patterns from other disciplines and contexts where behaviour change is a goal. This poster briefly reports on a series of controlled trials of an idea generation toolkit which aims to make this transposition of patterns easier, with designers and students applying the toolkit to four ‘design for sustainable behaviour’ briefs to generate new concepts for influencing user behaviour. While only a small sample, results show that using the toolkit does lead to an increase in the number of concepts generated for a majority of participants, compared with the control condition

Choice architecture and design with intent

Motivation – Choice architecture (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008) is a phrase of the moment among politicians and economists seeking to influence public behaviour, but the relevance of the concept to designers has received little attention. This paper places choice architecture within the context of Design with Intent—design intended to influence user behaviour. Research approach – The concepts are introduced and choice architecture is deconstructed. Findings/Design – Affordances and Simon’s behavioural model (1955) help understand choice architecture in more detail. Research limitations/Implications – This is only a very brief, limited foray into what choice architecture is. Originality/Value – User behaviour can be a major determinant of product efficiency: user decisions can contribute significantly to environmental impacts. Understanding the reasons behind them, a range of design techniques can be identified to help users towards more efficient interactions. Take away message – The intended outcome is a useful design method for helping users use things more efficiently

Comparing verbal media for alarm handling: Speech versus textual displays

The rise of computers in command and control domains has meant that control operations can be performed via desk-based visual display terminals. This trend has also produced the potential to display information to operators in a variety of formats. Of particular interest has been the use of text-based displays for alarm presentation. There are possible limitations to the use of text for alarm presentation, not least of which is the need for a dedicated alarms display screen (or, at least, a display page). Given the capability of computers to synthesize speech, it is possible that speech-based alarms could generate the same information as text-based displays without the need for dedicated screen space. In this paper an experimental comparison of speech-based and text-based displays for presentation of alarms is reported. The findings show that speech leads to longer response times than text displays, but that it has minimal effect on the efficacy of fault handling. The results are discussed within the alarm initiated activities framework and implications for alarm system design are outlined

Design for sustainable behaviour: Investigating design methods for influencing user behaviour

This research aims to develop a design tool for product and service innovation which influences users towards more sustainable behaviour, reducing resource use and leading to a lower carbon footprint for everyday activities. The paper briefly explains the reasoning behind the tool and its structure, and presents an example application to water conservation with concept ideas generated by design students

Meixner polynomials of the second kind and quantum algebras representing su(1,1)

We show how Viennot's combinatorial theory of orthogonal polynomials may be used to generalize some recent results of Sukumar and Hodges on the matrix entries in powers of certain operators in a representation of su(1,1). Our results link these calculations to finding the moments and inverse polynomial coefficients of certain Laguerre polynomials and Meixner polynomials of the second kind. As an immediate consequence of results by Koelink, Groenevelt and Van Der Jeugt, for the related operators, substitutions into essentially the same Laguerre polynomials and Meixner polynomials of the second kind may be used to express their eigenvectors. Our combinatorial approach explains and generalizes this "coincidence".Comment: several correction

Calculated 70-meter antenna performance for offset L-band and C-band feeds

A series of calculations that were carried out in order to determine the performance of the new dual-shaped 70 meter antenna for feeds that are displaced from the focal ring are summarized. Calculations were carried out at 1.68 GHz (L-band) and 5.0 GHz (C-band) for a number of feed/subreflector configurations. The effects of feed displacement, feed pointing angle, subreflector tilt, and lateral subreflector movement are summarized. Of specific interest are gain, beam squint, and spillover noise temperature for each of the feed/subreflector configurations described above

Modelling the User: How design for sustainable behaviour can reveal different stakeholder perspectives on human nature

Copyright @ 2010 TU DelftInfluencing more environmentally friendly and sustainable behaviour is a current focus of many projects, ranging from government social marketing campaigns, education and tax structures to designers’ work on interactive products, services and environments. There is a wide variety of techniques and methods used—we have identified over 100 design patterns in our Design with Intent toolkit—each intended to work via a particular set of cognitive and environmental principles. These approaches make different assumptions about ‘what people are like’: how users will respond to behavioural interventions, and why, and in the process reveal some of the assumptions that designers and other stakeholders, such as clients commissioning a project, make about human nature. In this paper, we discuss three simple models of user behaviour—the Pinball, the Shortcut and the Thoughtful—which emerge from user experience designers’ statements about users while focused on designing for behaviour change. We characterise these models using systems terminology and examine the application of each model to design for sustainable behaviour via a series of examples