Interaction in context - context in interaction

Publisher Summary This chapter examines the combination of knowledge-based support coupled with a high bandwidth on the interface as solutions to operator problems. A variant of the Crossman's water bath experiment is used (also used heavily in process control) and a set of different media interfaces have been developed for the experiment by combining sound, speech, graphics, animation, color, text, and still video. Subjects carry out a large number of trials to achieve steady state conditions in the bath. In some conditions warnings were given (either audio or visually). It is concluded that the use of Multimedia interfaces, in specific situations, did improve performance, learning, or satisfaction, or sometimes all three aspects. However, the difficulty of the task, the knowledge of the operator, the sophistication of the surrounding software, and whether the experiments are laboratory-based or in a real plant, are all relevant issues and affect the interpretation of the results.