Cognitive System Engineering - Based Design: Alchemy or Engineering

Abstract

Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) techniques are widely used for the description and analysis of the sources of cognitive complexity and explicating the basis of expertise within a work domain. However, the results of the CSE techniques often focus on work analysis and are only weakly coupled to the design of decision support systems that are built based on those analyses. In fact, some within the CSE community have suggested that such a design epiphany occurs as if by magic. If CSE is to be treated as an engineering discipline, it cannot rely on magic to create systems. The approach described in this paper assumes that an explicit relationship between system design and supported cognitive work is fundamental to the design's effectiveness. The goal is a pragmatic, effective engineering process that explicitly designs systems according to relationships between cognitive work requirements and decision support concepts.

Expanding Functional Analysis to Develop Requirements for the Design of the HumanComputer Interface

“…The design requirements need to define the shaping and processing for how the information/relationships should be represented to operators (Gualtieri, Szymczak, & Elm, 2005). Unlike typical requirements that specify what must be included on the screen (using the "system shall" language), design requirements for the HCI must also specify the representational requirements for how the information relationships are to be portrayed on the screen.…”

“…They provide the requirements for the designer to be more explicit about the specific representation dimensions to utilize in a given design concept. To define good requirements, according to Gualtieri et al (2005), the system designers must determine what "the frames of reference for the display should be, what events should be displayed, and what contrasts should be made salient." These decisions will be based largely on the work that needs to be accomplished and what the information relationships specify about completing this work.…”

“…The design described by Gualtieri et al (2005) is only one piece of a large display suite, but it is illustrative of the ACWA process from which the HCI can be designed. The display was designed to support only one subset of the goals for which the system was responsible.…”

“…Gualtieri et al (2005) describe the process of generating design requirements and design concepts from a functional analysis (ACWA). This can be directly compared to the type of display that is often produced using the standard Systems Engineering process.…”

“…For the stated cognitive work of monitoring the intelligence request process, Gualtieri et al (2005) identified a set of information relationships needed to support the work. Each of these information relationships was identified during the analysis portion of ACWA as being important to managing the set of Intelligence requests.…”