Cognitive engineering
Cognitive engineering is an interdisciplinary field that applies principles from cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and human factors to design and develop engineering systems that effectively support or enhance human cognitive processes.[1][2] The field emerged in the 1980s when Donald Norman and others recognized the need to better understand how humans interact with complex technological systems.[3]
Unlike traditional engineering design approaches that focus primarily on physical and technical aspects, cognitive engineering emphasizes understanding the mental models, decision-making processes, attention, memory, and information processing capabilities of users. This user-centered approach aims to create systems that are intuitive, reduce cognitive load, minimize human error, and optimize overall human-computer interaction. Cognitive engineering methods include task analysis, cognitive work analysis, cognitive modeling, usability testing, and various forms of user research.
History
[edit]It was an engineering method used in the 1970s at Bell Labs, focused on how people form a cognitive model of a system based upon common metaphors.[4] As explained, by Joseph Henry Condon:[4]
"The idea is that people form a model. You present them with some instruments, tools, like a faucet, electric stove or something like that and demonstrate how it works. They then form in their heads a model that shows how it works inside to help them remember how to use it in the future. It may be a totally erroneous model of what is going on inside the black box."
— Joseph Henry Condon, "Interview with Joseph H. Condon (transcript)". History of Science, Princeton University. Retrieved 2017-05-17.
According to Condon, the ideas of cognitive engineering were developed later than, and independent from, the early work on the Unix operating system.[5]
Don Norman cited principles of cognitive engineering in his 1981 article, "The truth about Unix: The user interface is horrid." Norman criticized the user interface of Unix as being "a disaster for the casual user."[6] However the "casual user" is not the target audience for UNIX and as the Condon quote above indicates, a high level of user interface abstraction leads to cognitive models that may be "totally erroneous."[fact or opinion?]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Wilson, Kyle M.; Helton, William S.; Wiggins, Mark W. (2013). "Cognitive engineering" (PDF). Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science. 4 (1): 17–31. doi:10.1002/wcs.1204. PMID 26304173.
- ^ John R. Gersh, Jennifer A. McKneely, and Roger W. Remington. "Cognitive Engineering: Understanding Human Interaction with Complex Systems" (PDF). Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest, Volume 26, Number 4 (2005).
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Norman, Donald A.; Draper, Stephen W. (1986). User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction. CRC Press. ISBN 978-0898598728.
- ^ a b "Interview with Joseph H. Condon (transcript)". History of Science, Princeton University. Retrieved 2017-05-17.
- ^ Michael S. Mahoney. "Joseph H. Condon". Princeton University History of Science.
- ^ Norman, Don (1981). "The truth about Unix: The user interface is horrid" (PDF). Datamation. Vol. 27, no. 12.