PROVIDING HUMAN-FACTORS KNOWLEDGE TO NONSPECIALISTS - A STRUCTURED METHOD FOR THE EVALUATION OF FUTURE SPEECH INTERFACES

Many system developers face the following problem: designing effective human-computer interfaces requires human factors expertise, but speci alists possessing such expertise are not always available to contribut e to development. This paper identifies a particular instance of the p roblem: that faced by military procurers who are not human factors exp erts when they assess whether speech-based computers will be suitable for specific future battlefield applications. The paper describes a me thod enabling the procurer systematically to develop simulations of fu ture systems (task, device, and user) and to perform empirical evaluat ions on them. The method is modelled on the structured analysis and de sign methods employed by software engineers, the scope, process, and n otation of which are explicit and proceduralized. A preliminary test s uggests that the method has the potential to improve the quality of ea rly speech interface assessments by procurers. However, some difficult ies remain in representing declarative knowledge of device user-intera ction, and in deciding an appropriate level for describing procedures to support such assessors. The implications of the work are considered for the more general transfer of human factors knowledge to non-speci alists