Project Proposal & Scope of Work
We made it to week 4 of the summer term, and are finally in a place to concretely define our scope of work for our upcoming six weeks at NASA Ames. This week we collaborated on “proof of concept” deliverables for our final prototype. We consolidated our research findings into a number of key design opportunities and questions to be answered by our final prototype, and narrowed the scope of the scenario which we will ultimately demo.
Well, what will it be?
The short answer is that we will be building a prototype for TOSC/ NASA technicians at Kennedy Space Center (our primary users) and we are targeting work execution within the broader scope of work authorization. The high-level goal of the prototype is to improve the efficiency of execution tasks. The intent is to convey work instructions that are clear and intelligible to a non-specialized user, without sacrificing the level of detail within the WAD required for a technician to do his/her job.
To this end, we proposed a mixed reality application improving efficiency & reliability of technician WAD execution. Our prototype will represent, simulate, and redesigns work steps 40/10, 40/20, 50/10 and 50/20 within TOSC’s work authorization document for the “Pathfinder Aft Skirt Transfer.” This particular workflow represents highly targeted work steps demanding buyoff from the technician most prominently, with minimal interference from other crucial parties (such as RPSF Move Director, Task Team Leader, etc).
How will we improve the current process?
WAD documents in PDF form can be long, repetitive, and boring, and the format could potentially lead to misreadings and/or faulty cognition. Through a mixed reality interface we will be able to improve WAD execution efficiency, provide additional foresight into upcoming tasks, and enable the user to quickly access task-specific information. Also, aviation, aeronautics, and product manufacturing contexts have demonstrated time & again that checklists reduce human error and improve efficiency, and WAD steps themselves reflect this checklist structure. Technicians typically need their hands free to execute work. With very little access to data on more dangerous use cases, we are focusing on execution tasks requiring the use of standard tools and supplementary information relevant to the WAD.
AR / MR
We feel a mixed reality interface can optimize the clear benefits of checklists within a multimodal, hands-free interface. By modulating the amount of information offered to the technician relevant to an individual work step at any one point, we may be able to speed up the work execution process overall. We will aim to reduce cognitive load while nonetheless ensuring the technician has access to the most relevant information needed to complete a particular work task. Seamless access to supplementary materials (cross-referenced WAD documents, manuals, help, and troubleshooting information) and the capability to contact collaborators within a single interface are additional benefits of a mixed reality interface. The benefits of multimodality and the extent to which visual, aural, and haptic interfaces are introduced and correlate to one another will be a continued area of design exploration within our project.
Our Design Process & Next Steps
We took a deep dive into the content and information represented within the WAD document we received from NASA / TOSC. This led to multiple representations and studies of the information architecture as contained within the WAD without sacrificing any pertinent information relevant to a technician, our primary user. We sought to understand the needs and constraints of an AR interface for WAD execution: what is necessary to see, hear, and what is the appropriate timing implicit in those interactions? This process led to the development of a number of design questions relevant to GUIs and CUIs which we will use to guide our design and tech development in the coming weeks. After a broad brainstorming and exploration period our goal is to narrow our design and development scope to one or two design questions which we can address more fully and comprehensively in our prototype.
