SIMS 213

Problem

At Brightlight Technologies, a startup company located in San Francisco that is dedicated to fighting Spam (junk e-mail), there exists a set of tools of which is used by Spam Control Engineers. These tools are used to view, catch, and aid in counter-measures used in the war against Spam. But, like all tools, their organization within an environment is key to making a user’s work much more efficient and effective. At times, the browsers used to view and trace the Spam have hindered the performance of these users. If we use the "desktop metaphor" as inspiration for a description, the screen may sometimes appear to be a cluttered desk, with making the search for a window or Spam-fighting utensil a hassle.

Analysis

It has been observed that sometimes the disorganized placement of tools and documents hinders the performance of an individual. With the counter-Spamming tools the users have been using, I have seen that, at times, the desktop environment becomes cluttered and awkward. Windows open at inappropriately large sizes, covering other windows, or, they open at too small a scale and do not reveal an area large enough to view the material presented. Sometimes, multiple windows will be opened and they overlap upon one another with users having to search for a specific window by trial and error (like a desk with multiple documents all over it). The online reference implemented to aid these users is also not easily accessible. The interface presented to the users of which give information to the processes being performed (e.g. retrieving Spam) do not give an intuitive insight as to what the overall system is doing, thereby causing confusion when troubleshooting.

Suggested Improvements

There are a number of ways to organize the scheme of which the tools, processes, and Spam browsers are presented to the user. First, the processes must be cognitively intuitive – they should have a related mental representation as that of the user. Second, the tools should be organized in a fashion of which their placement is in a consistent area, always accessible, and never needing to "hunt" them down through layers of browsers. Third, the browsers containing the content should be organized in a hypertext outline form. This format allows the user to see a larger picture as well as the finer details when searching for the correct browser.

Experiment

Independent variables: The constraints varied would be the re-organization of the anti -Spamming tools. They would be organized in different hierarchies from importance, to alphabetized, and to schemes that match what the user cognitively perceives as primary and secondary tools. The processes shown to the user will be manipulated, as such, to give a user more insight and a better representation to the machines current undertaking so that they would yield more linguistically valid and intuitive questions of summaries when asked for the current state of the situation. Windows will be changed to give the user a more sensible viewing area (e.g. windows should not be at maximum for two lines of information or at a reduced size for a large page of text).

Dependent variables: I will be measuring the improved or hindered speed of the users finding the needed tools and browsers. I will also be measuring the validity of their explanations, their mental representations of real-world processes in troubleshooting scenarios to see if the new representations are much more intuitive or better conveyed.

Participants: This experiment will primarily involve the operations staff, it’s supervisors, and tool implementers. These subjects have direct, everyday encounters with this interface.

Method: I shall use a within-groups scheme to approach this problem. Each and every operations staff will have the same tasks and conditions. This method seems valid because learning plays a large role in the usage of this system. As time goes on, and different tools are used, the user becomes accustomed and skews towards a certain method of performing these duties. They will be asked to find a browser in a cluttered environment as fast as possible or be asked a scenario in which something has gone wrong and convey a technically valid explanation to a supervisor, of which will help test the intuitiveness of the interface.

Results: I predict that the efficiency will be noticeably improved in the areas of finding a needed browser. But, the most dramatic result may come from the more informative representations of the current processes shown to the user. They may feel much more confident and develop a better cognitive understanding as to what the system is undergoing than seeing it as a mystery of which only the system administrator would know. If these results are attained, then it would mean that information organized in a certain way is much like ergonomics or "mental ergonomics." Present the same amount, but do not "brute-force" it. There is no reason as to why information must be learned a certain way. It should be tailored to the user. The end-goal is the same – to attain relevant data.