7.1.3 Provide feedback
Always provide the user with informative feedback. Some sort of system feedback should
follow every user action. If the actions are frequent and small, the feedback can be
discreet, while if the actions are more extensive then more substantial feedback should be
provided. The icons on the toolbars should be flat in appearance when no interaction is
performed with them.
When the user hovers the mouse over an icon, the borders of the button should
appear, making it “stand out” from the toolbar, effectively making it apparent that that
particular button is currently in focus. When the user presses the button, the usual button
reaction, i.e. the appearance of it being pressed, should be utilized. This behavior
provides the feedback the user needs to know that the toolbar button is responding to
his or her actions. After pressing a button, the resulting actions performed by the system
should be visually obvious.
When a specific alert is clicked in the alert list, the color of the alert should change, so
that it is apparent that it is in fact chosen. Hovering the mouse cursor over an alert
should immediately bring up the information coupled to that specific alert. This way, the
user can quickly attain relevant information about an alert.
Additional information should be possible to access through clicking on the alert
specifics. The user may want to find out more about a certain crewmember that has been
affected by an alert, and by clicking this, more in-depth information should be presented,
i.e. personal data, roster etc.
Avoid using sound feedback. Because the crew controllers work in an open environment,
the sounds will add to the already noisy background ambience. Furthermore, the sounds
may refrain the crew controller from overhearing conversations between other crew
controllers, which is an important information channel.
Take into account the fact that a substantial percentage of the male population is color
blind, and to choose colors that people with and without color-deficiencies can easily
distinguish, especially if color is chosen to be an information-carrier. Red and green
should be avoided if possible. For example, the colors blue, yellow, black and white are
preferably chosen as the different alert types (if alerts are chosen to be visualized as
graphical objects), as color-blind people do not perceive these much differently. Because
the users can be of virtually any nationality, choose icons and metaphors that are
understandable by people with different cultural backgrounds and take notice of which
colors mean what in different countries. Because of the latter reason, it would be
beneficial to provide the user with the means of selecting a specific a country and/or
culture, and the operations monitor would thereafter change the color-scheme
accordingly; it is hard, if not impossible, to derive a certain number of static colors which
would signify the same thing in all cultures and it would be better to have pre-defined
color-schemes for different cultures which could be chosen on request.
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