Experimental transformation of a cognitive schema into a display structure

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to report on an experiment conducted to evaluate the feasibility of an empirical approach for translating a cognitive schema into a display structure. This experiment is part of a series of investigations aimed at determining how information about dynamic environments should be portrayed to facilitate decision making. Studies to date have generally derived an information display organisation that is largely based on a designer’s experience, intuition and understanding of the processes. In this study we report on how we attempted to formalise this design process so that if the procedures were adopted, other less experienced designers would still be able to objectively formulate a display organisation that is just as effective. This study is based on the first stage of the emergency dispatch management process, the call-taking stage. The participants in the study were ambulance dispatch officers from the Dunedin-based Southern Regional Communications Centre of the St. John’s Ambulance Service in New Zealand.