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Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!peterr
From: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Intro. to net.cog-eng
Message-ID: <1962@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Aug-83 15:50:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.1962
Posted: Mon Aug 15 15:50:07 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Aug-83 15:52:51 EDT
Expires: Fri, 1-Jan-99 23:00:00 EDT
Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto
Lines: 48

This newsgroup, net.cog-eng (Cognitive Engineering) has been created to
discuss psychology and particularly cognitive science *applied* to the
design of computer systems.  The group is not for discussions of social
or interpersonal psychology, except as they relate to the design of
computer systems, nor for pure cognitive science, which should appear
in net.ai.

A rationale for the field (and this newsgroup) is contained in Donald
Norman's "Learning and Memory", W.H.Freeman, 1982.  The book, a fine
introduction to modern cognitive science, contains the following:

"If you get the chance, examine the control room of an electricity-
 generating nuclear power plant.  Impressive, isn't it?  All those dials
 and knobs, switches and lights.  Did you ever wonder how the plant operators
 manage?  Do wonder. [There's evidence that part of the troubles at Three
 Mile Island were induced by this complexity] The design of the control panel
 is a combination of chance, luck, incompatible components, and almost
 complete indifference to the problems of human functioning ... A typical
 control room has more than 100 feet of panels, as many as 3000 meters and
 controls (with some meters requiring ladders or footstools to be read),
 and other meters or alarms located tens of feet away from the relevant 
 controls, all seemingly designed as if to maximize memory load and to
 minimize an operator's ability to match actual plant functioning to an
 internal, mental model of proper functioning."

"There are people who know how to do better, [the human-factors engineers].
 But [equipment designers] tend to dismiss their craft as "mere common sense."
 ... Yet there is more to design than common sense.  It is not a matter of how
 to best design a switch or a meter; it is a matter of trying to understand the
 functioning of the human, of deciding whether a switch or meter ought to be
 present at all.  A design should center on the functions and intentions of
 the human.  It shouldn't force the human to match the arbitrary needs of the
 machine.  System designers should start by considering the user.  All too
 often they start with the machine, and the human is not thought of until
 the end, when it's too late..."

Norman goes to to call ed, the Unix editor, an example of bad cognitive
engineering, creating unneccesary memory loads.  And there are worse software
analogues of the nuclear power plant control example.

Cognitive engineering, done well, would correct this function-before-user
design methodology and produce systems which better fit the abilities of
the user, producing systems less prone to operator error.

So, this group is to discuss this new discipline, and its mother fields of
psychology and cognitive science, as they apply to the design of computer
systems.  It will also faciliate communication between the rather few
(and geographically dispersed) researchers in this area.