2 THE PROTOTYPES SEVERAL ASPECTS HAVE BEEN TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT WHEN D...

9.2 The prototypes

Several aspects have been taken into account when designing the prototypes. The most

significant has been for the design to reduce and sort out the information, in order to

reduce the cognitive workload on the user. This is to minimize the errors and the time to

collect relevant information when it is time critical and very stressful. Sounds and

animations have not been considered as options at all, since that would move the users

attention and be disturbing in this noisy stressful environment, where the users are

already using the sounds of the environment using divided attention while working

focused on one task.

In order of cultural aspects, it might seem as if the designs are completely

western, even though it was a requirement that it would be company independent.

According to the information retrieved on different cultural aspects in interface design,

the design is satisfying in any part of the world. The timeline being read from left to right

is not the most common in all parts of the world, but even so, the use of western

computerized systems has made this visualization of time generally accepted.

The choice of colors has been decided in accordance to be carriers of

information, meaning they have the same meaning and does not change in appearance

even though the user might be colorblind. The cultural aspects of colors have also

contributed to the decisions, since some colors might have different meaning in different

cultures. The color red has been avoided, since this is connected to danger in some parts

of the world, and all the graphical objects carrying information with colors are alarms,

meaning the color should not affect the priority or draw attention from the others.

The icons has been decided upon from different aspects too, like the most

commonly used trying to match the users internal model with the underlying functions

reducing the cognitive workload, and the cultural aspects of the meaning if the icons. The

icons are not to appear alone, there is also a describing text to what function it is, this to

reduce the possible confusion of what it is presenting.