The benefits of standardization in manufacturing and automated environments are clear as the use of the same material and processes produces the same output. Buying in bulk reduces per piece cost and customer satisfaction increases with lower cost and product consistency (include cost of change, e.g. training cost). Outputs of healthcare systems are patient outcomes, which are not products; patients have unique circumstances and possible treatment for episodes throughout their lives. This study presents the elements of a healthcare system and discusses how standardization increases efficiency and effectiveness of each element. The elements studied are infrastructure processes, care processes, supplies and equipment and facility layout. Characteristics considered are patient outcome, safety, provider and patient satisfaction and cost.

Legislation enacted throughout the world requires government agencies and affiliates to make electronic and information technology for internal and public use accessible to people with disabilities. Ensuring an awareness of the law and compliance with it requires a multi-part process, including advertisement, training, retro-fitting, template and instruction development and follow-up review. The regulations are under almost constant revision, as technology innovations require additional consideration. While checklists and automated tools are available, they do not necessarily guarantee compliance with the most recent guidelines. This paper presents a systematic approach for consideration in organizations that are required to comply with accessibility laws.

Changes in medical product or device design can have important implications in patient safety. An altered device interface may change the ability of a clinician to use the device properly, even if the underlying functionality of the device is the same. When a new device is brought into a health care setting, issues may occur at various stages, including acquisition, deployment, and continuing education. This paper examines reported patient safety events related to the introduction of new or changed devices into the health care environment. Communication was found to be a root cause of some events. In particular, lack of communication to the end user of product differences can result in misuse in the patient care setting. Recommendations include increased clinician input at the product selection and deployment stage and documentation of changes in product interface or use instructions to improve end user training and point-of-use aids.

Following research published in 1996, a survey was conducted to investigate the likes, dislikes and areas of difficulty on the World-Wide Web. Findings of the pilot survey indicate that the amount of information online was most liked, advertisements were the least liked and searching presented the most difficulty. A follow-up questionnaire similar to that used in 1995 was administered and 301 responses were obtained. The comparison of the two surveys, conducted more than a decade apart, indicates that some users are not aware of features of search engines and browsers that would aid them in their searching efforts. However, better instructions on the search process or search tools were not considered enhancements. Unlike the 1996 survey, this survey contained questions concerning online advertising. Respondents indicated that easy to ignore or potentially interesting forms of advertising are less annoying than pop-ups, spam and those that animate in the screen foreground.

B2C Web sites allow companies to present their unique advantages, as long as they provide the necessary customer service. This checklist will help developers create more effective B2C sites.

Preferences for certain characteristics of an online shopping experience may be related to demographic data. This paper discusses the characteristics of that experience, demographic data and preferences by demographic group. The results of an online survey of 488 individuals in the United States indicate that respondents are generally satisfied with their online shopping experiences, with security, information quality and information quantity ranking first in importance overall. The sensory impact of a site ranked last overall of the seven characteristics measured. Preferences for these characteristics in e-commerce sites were differentiated by age, education and income. The sensory impact of sites became less important as respondents increased in age, income or education. As the income of respondents increased, the importance of the reputation of the vendor rose. Web site designers may incorporate these findings into the design of e-commerce sites in an attempt to increase the shopping satisfaction of their users. Results from the customer relationship management portion of the survey suggest that current push technologies and site personalization are not an effective means of achieving user satisfaction.

While the appeal of shopping online is enormous, successful methods of attracting and keeping customers remain elusive. Product offerings, service, and price are important considerations in online shopping, and a useful and satisfying Web site is also a consideration for on-line success. This research investigates product presentation in remote purchase environments and whether to accommodate user preferences for information processing in that presentation. After simulating an on-line shopping experience, users were asked about their satisfaction with it. Results indicate that regardless of the individual information processing style, the sentential style Web site was preferred over the diagrammatic style of product presentation. However, a combination site including both pictures and text was preferred over the others. These results address a conflict between goals of fast download time and thorough product presentation. Pictures may represent confirmation of the verbal description and provides a holistic view of the product, which slightly increases satisfaction.

The vast amount of information available through the Web has made it difficult to retrieve information relevant to a specific task. To help ensure that users' interactions with a system are successful, preparation of content and its presentation to users must take into account (a) what information needs to be extracted, (b) the way in which this information should be stored and organized, (c) the methods for retrieving the information, and (d) how the information should be displayed. The goal of this article is to discuss the generic problems facing content preparation and evaluate the current methods available to help remedy them, as well as identify areas in which more research is needed. The material presented in this article was a result of the collective efforts of the participants of a special "white paper" session that was part of the 9th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI International 2001).

With internationalization of commerce and business and with increased use of e-business and e-commerce, it is important to ensure that these systems can be effectively utilized across cultural boundaries. To increase effectiveness, appropriate changes and modifications in the systems may be required. With this in mind, a survey of 300 Turkish university students was undertaken to assess their on-line shopping and behaviour preferences, and these were compared with the results derived from 64 US university students. The results provide guidelines for specific design of features for the Turkish population that may not be necessary for the US population.

While computers provide access to a multitude of data, the comprehension of that data for decision making and communication purposes relies on humans. What characteristics emerge as important to the skill of data interpretation and is training possible to develop this skill? This paper assesses user competence for the perception and comprehension of graphical computer displays using a knowledge, skills and abilities framework. The basic research questions are: how do characteristics that are inherent to an individual (abilities) affect the use of moving graphical displays, how do characteristics that may be altered through training (skills) affect such use, and how does knowledge related to the task affect use? Following a model of skill acquisition, the possible characteristics of importance are presented based on an experiment conducted using an animated, graphical computer screen. Results indicate that age and domain knowledge are correlated with task performance. Younger subjects performed better, as did those subjects already familiar with the data domain of the states in the United States.

This study investigates the job satisfaction of information technology (IT) professionals in an environment where computer aided software engineering (CASE) tools are used. Although the recent downturn in the economy might have temporarily eased the IT labor shortage, issues of recruitment and retention of qualified personnel are key to the success of IS development projects. This study presents a model of the combination of CASE tool usage and job satisfaction as related to internal career orientation. Two hypotheses based on this model were tested using empirical evidence collected through a survey method. The first examines whether the career orientation of IS personnel influences their job satisfaction. The second incorporates the impact of CASE tool usage on this relationship. The results indicate that in a CASE tool environment, personnel with a predominant technical career orientation have more job satisfaction than those with a predominant managerial tation. However, there is a significant and positive synergy between the sophistication of the CASE tool used and managerial competence orientation leading to higher job satisfaction. These findings indicate that combating the IT personnel shortage through task automation may also increase worker satisfaction, thereby decreasing turnover. Careful selection of the CASE tool for use may result in this win-win situation.

Graphics provide a means of displaying large numbers of data points at one time. Multidimensional graphs are used for recognizing trends and analyzing a business environment for decision making. When several images are shown in an ordered sequence, an animated display is created. As the use of graphical, animated displays becomes more prevalent for business analysis and decision making, a better understanding of the conditions under which these displays are useful is needed. This research presents a model of animation speed setting based on Bloch's law of temporal summation; rapid, sequential, visual presentation; and eye movement timings. The model was tested in a laboratory experiment. The experimental results indicate that the model can be used to determine animation speed but only within the limits of human comprehension. Response accuracy to basic comparison questions was highest when the number of nonadjacent areas viewed on the display was 1 or 2. Based on these findings, a revised model is presented as well as a new guideline for interface design.

As computer-based manufacturing systems become more complex, performance of the human in such systems becomes more critical due to the assignment of cognitive and decision making tasks to the shop floor. The objective of this research is to test the theoretical model of human skill requirements and acquisition associated with the operation of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) developed in a previous work. An operational model is developed from the theoretical model and tested. Specifically, it is proposed that mental workload capacity and ability level within an individual can be combined to determine an individual's “ability margin”. Twelve subjects performed figure comparison tasks in which perceptual speed and visualization ability requirements were manipulated. Results support the concept of an ability margin. The significance of this research lies in its contribution to developing a new and effective methodology for predicting, in a systematic and structured way, the available cognitive resources and abilities required to operate, maintain and manage AMT in the workplace. A key conclusion of this study is that abilities are independent of each other in terms of the resource allocation policy within each resource pool.Relevance to industrySince humans play a critical role in advanced manufacturing systems, the interactions between tasks and human skills acquisition must be thoroughly understood so that corporations can efficiently adapt to new technologies. One application is the proper selection and training of personnel capable of performing in these complex environments.

In this paper a conceptual framework and an operational methodology is presented for describing the most appropriate knowledge elicitation method (protocol, interview, induction and repertory grid) for three classes of tasks (diagnosis, debugging and interpretation) and for experts with strengths in various factors of cognitive abilities. Using the dependent variables of: (1) total knowledge captured; (2) time to acquire knowledge; (3) knowledge quality; (4) efficiency of the knowledge elicitation method; and (5) importance of resulting data, experimental results indicate the various strengths of the four knowledge elicitation methods. The knowledge acquired is also significantly affected by the combined factors of expert's strengths in different cognitive factors and the method of knowledge elicitation used. Based on these findings, a Matching Index for combining tasks, knowledge elicitation methods and cognitive abilities of the expert is described. The outcome of this research provides theoretical and practical implications for Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and training of knowledge engineers.

In order to increase the effectiveness of the World-Wide Web (WWW), an ergonomic study of the users of the WWW was undertaken. In the first survey, 66 users responded to an open-ended survey of likes, dislikes and difficulties experienced with the use of the WWW. Based on this pilot survey, a questionnaire was designed to which nearly 200 responses were obtained which indicated that providing a mechanism to improve users' knowledge, site selection and search increased users' satisfaction and effectiveness of using the WWW. The outcome from this survey provides fertile grounds for the design and experimentation of scientific ergonomics studies to increase the user functions of the WWW.