DESIGN AND ARRANGEMENT

OF DISPLAYS AND CONTROLS

SITI ZAWIAH MD DAWAL

DEPT OF ENG. DESIGN AND
MANUFACTURE
UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA
Displays and controls are the interface
through which human-machine
information exchange takes place.
The design of the displays and controls of
a machine can either facilitate interaction
or increase task difficulty and the
probability of error.
 CONTROLS
Controls transmit input to a piece of
equipment.

Usually operated by hand or foot.

The results of the control inputs are shown

to the operator either in terms of displays
or indicators or by the ensuring actions of
the machine.
 DESIGN OF CONTROLS
Controls should be designed to be
operable in low-stress postures and
without static loading of body parts,
particu-larly the fingers.
Control dimensions should be determined
using appropriate hand and foot
anthropometry and a knowledge of the
mechanical advantage needed to enable
the user to actuate the control easily.
 Vehicle Controls
Steering wheels, joy sticks, and pedals are
commonly used to control vehicles. Control
usability can be affected by the resistance of the
control, which should be operable using forces
which are a fraction of the operator's maximum
voluntary contraction.
However, the control should offer some
resistance to movement so that bumping errors
and muscle tremor do not cause control errors
(Young, 1973).
 Control Distinctiveness
In many instances, numerous controls are
grouped together on a panel and the
designer's task is to ensure that operators
can easily distinguish between different
controls. In addition, manual controls
provide the operator with tactile feedback
which can be used to give a distinctive
identity to a control or related set of
controls.
McCormick and Sanders (1982)
recommend using several dimensions to
code different controls so as to enhance
their distinctiveness. Designers may
choose from shape, color, texture, size,
location, operational method, position, and
labeling.
 Voice Control: Problems and
prospects
The development of speech-recognition
technology introduces the possibility of using
voice as a control device. Some potential
advantages of voice control are the following:

1. It provides an extra communication channel

which may take some of the load off
more conventional channels.
2. It frees the hands to carry out other activities.
6. Subroutines are already built up for the
production of voice commands, so training time
should be reduced.
The processing requirements for issuing
voice commands would not be expected to
conflict with those for manual control;
therefore voice is often thought to have
the potential to speed up task
performance or increase an operator's
information-handling capacity.
Some evidence for this comes from Martin and
Long (1984), who investigated a simulation of a
ship's gunfire control task which involved
compensatory tracking as a primary task. They
found that a simultaneous pointing task
degraded tracking performance, whereas a
spoken version of the same task did not. It was
concluded that the findings were consistent with
a multichannel model of performance in which
speech and tracking occupied parallel, but
independent, channels with no common capacity
limitation.
 Voice Recognizer Faces
Speech is a complex acoustic signal containing
bands of energy centered on 500, 1500, 2000,
and 3000 Hz. These are known as formants and
they consist of an initial transient segment
followed by a steady-state segment. The lower
two formants are sufficient for the perception of
speech, which enables bandwidth compression
to be implemented to reduce the information
load of speech transmission systems and
speech synthesizers.
Many investigations of speech perception
by humans have been carried out by
researchers in the field of
psycholinguistics (see Howard, 1983, for
an introduction to this research). Speech
perception is thought to depend on the
interplay of both top-down and bottom-up
processes. Bottom-up (analytic)
processes detect particular features in the
speech signal as it is received.
Combinations of features detected in speech
form the characteristic signatures of basic
speech sounds such as phonemes, syllables, or
words. When matched with a stored
representation of known features, the speech
can be said to have been recognized. Top-down
(synthetic) processes use higher-order
information to synthesize possible items which
can be matched against the incoming signal
(trying to "guess what's coming next"). A
knowledge of grammar, syntax, and context is
required to drive these higher order interpretive
processes.
 DISPLAYS
Display provide operator with information
about the status of equipment.

Displays are either visual, auditory, tactile.

Labels and instructions or warnings are

special kind of displays.
 Selecting the display
Status information
Historical information
Predictive information
Instructional information
Commanding information
 VISUAL DISPLAY
Check display
Qualitative display
Quantitative display
 SCALES AND POINTERS
May be straight, curved or circular
Should be simple
Numerals
 CODING
Location
Shape
Size
Mode of operation
Labeling
Color
Combining control and
display
Use Grouping Principle in Panel Design
Avoid Spatial Transformations
COMPUTER INPUT DEVICES
Numerical Keypads

Computer keyboards

Other input devices

 LABELS
It is necessary to use label to locate ,
identify, read or manipulate controls,
displays or other equipment. Labeling
must be done so that the information
provided accurately and rapidly.
 DESIGN OF LABELS
Orientation –horizontal –easy to read
Location – place near item it identifies
Standardization -consistently
Abbreviation -common
Brevity –concise as possible –intended
meaning
Familiarity –words familiar
Visibility and Legibility – can be read
easily –under worst illumination,
vibration…etc
 WARNINGS
Reasons to warn – potential injury, danger
What to warn about – people must be
warn about various concerns –e.g product
must be used properly..
Whom to warn – product manufacturer
has the duty to warn –potential user,
customer, sales marketing
How to warn –on product itself, advertizing
sales instructions to customers/ users
 DESIGN OF WARNINGS
Visual warning –may contain text,
graphics pictures – often redundant

Symbol and Icons –meant to identify

object , warn of hazard or indicate an
action.