Attention and selection behavior on ‘universal search’ result pages

The ISO norm line 9241 states some criteria for ergonomics of human system interaction. In markets with a huge variety of offers and little possibility of differentiation, providers can gain a decisive competitive advantage by user oriented interfaces. A precondition for this is that relevant information can be obtained for entrepreneurial decisions in this regard. To test how users of universal search result pages use those pages and pay attention to different elements, an eye tracking experiment with a mixed design has been developed. Twenty subjects were confronted with search engine result pages (SERPs) and were instructed to make a decision while conditions “national vs. international city” and “with vs. without miniaturized Google map” were used. Different parameters like fixation count, duration and time to first fixation were computed from the eye tracking raw data and supplemented by click rate data as well as data from questionnaires. Results of this pilot study revealed some remarkable facts like a vampire effect on miniaturized Google maps. Furthermore, Google maps did not shorten the process of decision making, Google ads were not fixated, visual attention on SERPs was influenced by position of the elements on the SERP and by the users’ familiarity with the search target. These results support the theory of Amount of Invested Mental Effort (AIME) and give providers empirical evidence to take users’ expectations into account. Furthermore, the results indicated that the task oriented goal mode of participants was a moderator for the attention spent on ads. Most important, SERPs with images attracted the viewers’ attention much longer than those without images. This unique selling proposition may lead to a distortion of competition on markets.

Desenho Técnico e Formação de Trabalhadores da Indústria Automóvel : um estudo comparado entre Portugal e Brasil

Esta Tese trata do Desenho Técnico na formação do trabalhador a partir de um estudo comparado entre Portugal e Brasil, na indústria de automóveis. Observam-se, introdutoriamente, aspectos referentes à trajetória do Desenho de linguagem técnica no percurso do Ensino Industrial e na atual estrutura educativa luso-brasileira, enquanto disciplina escolar. Na segunda parte descreve-se o histórico da indústria de automóveis e a reconfiguração automotiva mundial, através da qual analisam-se as justificativas para este fenômeno, especialmente em Portugal e no Brasil, fundamentadas nas implicações da organização da economia mundial. Estabelece a relação entre a evolução da Divisão Internacional do Trabalho e do Desenho Técnico enquanto linguagem da indústria. Na terceira e última parte são apresentados e analisados os dados relativos à pesquisa empírica, pautada no Método da Triangulação dos dados, e apresenta-se a comparação entre os dois sistemas educativos, no que respeita a presença e frequência do Desenho Técnico na organização curricular do Curso Técnico de Mecatrônica, utilizado como elemento de comparação e sua relação com a oferta formativa para a indústria de automóveis nas duas localidades em que estão instaladas as indústrias pesquisadas, Palmela em Portugal e Camaçari no Brasil, e verifica-se a importância atribuída a este conhecimento no desenvolvimento da atividade produtiva, através do percurso educativo e formativo dos sujeitos, os trabalhadores das indústrias pesquisadas. Os resultados auferidos apontam para a confirmação de que o lugar que o Desenho Técnico ocupa na Educação do Brasil e de Portugal está subordinado ao lugar que estes países ocupam na geografia do Sistema-Mundo.

Understanding safety and production risks in rail engineering planning and protection

Much of the published human factors work on risk is to do with safety and within this is concerned with prediction and analysis of human error and with human reliability assessment. Less has been published on human factors contributions to understanding and managing project, business, engineering and other forms of risk and still less jointly assessing risk to do with broad issues of ‘safety’ and broad issues of ‘production’ or ‘performance’. This paper contains a general commentary on human factors and assessment of risk of various kinds, in the context of the aims of ergonomics and concerns about being too risk averse. The paper then describes a specific project, in rail engineering, where the notion of a human factors case has been employed to analyse engineering functions and related human factors issues. A human factors issues register for potential system disturbances has been developed, prior to a human factors risk assessment, which jointly covers safety and production (engineering delivery) concerns. The paper concludes with a commentary on the potential relevance of a resilience engineering perspective to understanding rail engineering systems risk. Design, planning and management of complex systems will increasingly have to address the issue of making trade-offs between safety and production, and ergonomics should be central to this. The paper addresses the relevant issues and does so in an under-published domain – rail systems engineering work.