Making Monitoring UIs Suck Less June 11, 2009

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Google Tech Talk
February 26, 2009

ABSTRACT

Presented by Conrad Albrecht-Buehler.

Technology users are technology observers as well: monitoring for problems or opportunities that might arise. Designing interfaces to support the monitoring of technology presents unique challenges: from detecting situations to responding to situations, to changing the tools to match a changing operating environment or the changing knowledge of the observer.

I present "Heed": a scale and framework to help observers of a system evaluate which situations need scrutiny and when, along with an example heed-based interface that encourages the development of situation awareness. I discuss how the framework and interface can be applied to four different situations: server performance, a business's finances, user experience in a community forum, and the risk of disease outbreak at a veterinary clinic.

Conrad Albrecht-Buehler is always on the look-out for new and challenging user problems to explore and design remedies for. He received his Ph.D. at Northwestern University studying human-computer interaction with Don Norman, and is now adjunct faculty at Northwestern's Segal Design Institute teaching user-centered design. His research focuses on interfaces for situation awareness and information visualization. In his spare time, he designs products for stroke survivors and enjoys dog training.