Application of WESTT to System Redesign

Abstract

Background

The motivation for this work arises from the problems of aligning Human Factors with Systems Engineering. A perennial issue relates to the difficulty of incorporating Human Factors design recommendations into an appropriate Systems Engineering framework. In the past, one approach to this issue has been addressed through the Soft Systems approach advocated by Checkland [1] and others. An alternative line of enquiry arises from efforts to combine Human Factors and software engineering techniques, such as the MUSE method of Lim and Long [2]. This report follows in the latter tradition and considers how Human Factors techniques, particularly those supported by the Workload, Error, Situational awareness, Time and Teamwork (WESTT) tool, can be used to inform Unified Modelling Language initial system descriptions.

Goal

By demonstrating, through two case studies, the manner in which WESTT can be used to both inform the design of a user interface (and some of the underlying functionality) and to consider the impact of alternative communications systems on a command structure, the report provides guidance on how Human Factors can be incorporated with initial stages of Systems Engineering.

Scope

The case studies relate to the design of a novel user interface for Incident Command, based on observations of training exercises by the Fire Service, and the comparison of alternative command and control configurations for emergency response in the Police Force. While the case studies draw upon civilian emergency response activity, the basic principles relating to the collection of data and their use for design and specification can be applied to military domains.

Readership

This report is aimed at both Systems Engineers and Human Factors practitioners and intended to be read as a case study as to how WESTT can be related to UML, with particular focus on the derivation of a Class Diagram from the WESTT analysis and the use of such a diagram to propose user interface designs.

Related HFI DTC work

There are aspects of other HFI DTC work that are related to this work. WESTT is described in [3, 4, 5, 6]. The use of Unified Modelling Language and System Modelling Language in System Design is currently being explored, and Human Views for MoDAF (the Ministry of Defence Architectural Framework) are being developed in conjunction with NATO panel HFM-155.

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