A situation awareness analysis scheme to identify deficiencies of complex man-machine interactions

This paper presents an analysis scheme which aims to support asystematic study of required situation awareness (RSA). This scheme supportsidentification of deficiencies of support for situation awareness (SA).Information needs are goal and task dependent and can be defined usingexisting cognitive task analysis (CTA) methods. RSA, however, is a subset ofinformation needs and depends on the interaction between goals, tasks, systemfactors and individual factors. The analysis scheme has helped to identify thatthe current methods to define RSA do not support a distinction betweeninformation needs and RSA. The scheme was trialled in a nautical trafficmanagement context as an extension to existing CTA methods. The researchactivities necessary to study RSA and to identify deficiencies of current supportfor SA in nautical traffic management context were applied. The study showedthat the research set-up designed through application of the analysis schemehelped to define RSA, and that RSA is considerably context and operatordependent. Future research will focus on the potential for context-awareadaptable interface solutions to allow for RSA dependent informationvisualisation.