A picture is worth a thousand words: on visual aspects of user interfaces of radio-telescopes

摘要

In the context of developing the user interfaces (UIs) for the control room of SKA (Square Kilometer Array) we analysed the UIs of existing radio-telescopes from the perspective of the human visual perception processes, in order to identify ways to make important information more efficiently communicated to operators and astronomers on duty. It is known that visual information can be processed much faster than text and that images are more effective for remembering information. Our study shows that operators and astronomers have to rely predominantly on text-based UIs. For example, only colour changes and audible signals are used to attract users attention, while motion, animation or change in shape are usually neglected. Likewise, preattentive features are seldom used to focus user's attention on important information. When running the telescope operators are likely to be concentrated on specific tasks and could fail to notice changes in the UI unless these changes are made as easy to find as possible. In this paper we identify parts of the UIs that could benefit by a wider exploitation of visual information; they include the health monitor, the weather monitor and the scheduler, and give some initial suggestions of possible solutions.