“…it’s the le…it’s the right one…”

What is Situational Awareness?

Situational AwarenessBeing aware of what is happening

around you and understanding what that information means to you now

and in the future

Endsley, Bolte and Jones, 2003

• Researched for around 25 years

• Used widely in Aviation, Military, Power Generation, Emergency Management, Medicine

• Also applies to everyday events

• ‘A state variable of the human involved in his or her environment’

Perception Comprehension Projection

Level 1 SA Level 2 SA Level 3 SA

Sensemaking Predicting

75% 19% 6%

TimeHelps to determine how soon

each element will have an impact on their goals and tasks

Sensing

Endsley, Bolte and Jones, 2003

• Attentional tunnelling

• Limitations in working memory

• Workload, anxiety, fatigue, stress

• Data overload

• Misplaced information priority

• Complexity creep

• Incorrect mental models

• Out-of-the-loop

Endsley, Bolte and Jones, 2003

Shared Situational AwarenessThe degree to which team members have the same situational awareness

on shared situational awareness requirements

Endsley and Jones, 2001

• SA is distributed according to hierarchy, space and time

• Strategic, tactical, operational levels

• Individuals’ SA needs to overlap appropriately

• We constantly make assumptions regarding other people’s awareness

Why is Situational Awareness important?

Information Overload:more information, coming from more

sources

• More channels of communication

• More distractions

• 60+ notifications a day on our smart phones

• Constant multitasking degrades our concentration

2. (Mieczakowski, Goldhaber and Clarkson, 2011)

1. (Pielot, Church, Oliveira, Telefonica Research, 2014)

1

2

Unfamiliar Service Models:harder to comprehend and predict

events

“…the world’s largest taxi company owns no vehicles, the most popular media owner creates no content, the largest accommodation provider owns no real estate…”

(Goodwin, 2015)

The Ironies of Automation:Solves some problems.....creates new

problems

• Takes humans out of the loop

• Makes us passive observers - not ‘doers’

• Prevents us developing mental models

• Degrades our ability to predict and recover from problems

How can we improve Situational Awareness?

Research

• Know your ‘machine’ and its operating environment

• Focus on failures - ‘bad is stronger than good’

• Goal-based task analysis

1. (Baumeister et al, 2001)

1

Design

• Attentional tunnelling - provide the big picture

• Limitations in working memory - gather information

• Workload, anxiety, fatigue, stress - don’t make it worse!

• Data overload - innovate in data presentation and alerts

• Misplaced information priority - match information to goals

• Complexity creep - simplify

• Incorrect mental models - support the novice

• Out-of-the-loop - provide support rather than make decisions

Evaluation

• Situational Awareness Rating Technique

• Situational Awareness Global Assessment Technique

• Quantitative Analysis of Situational Awareness

1. (DTIC, 2004)

1

Thank You

References

• Endsley, M.R., Bolte, B., Jones, D. G. (2003) Designing for Situation Awareness. London: Taylor and Francis.

• Endsley, M.R and Jones, D.G. (2001) A model of inter- and intrateam situation awareness. In M. McNeese, E. Sales & M. Endsley (Eds), New Trends in Cooperative Activities: Understanding systems dynamics in complex environments (pp. 46-67). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

• Mieczakowski, A., Goldhaber, T. and Clarkson, J. (2011) Culture, Communication and Change: Reflections on the user and impact of modern media and technology in our lives. University of Cambridge.

• Pielot, M., Church, K. and de Oliviera, R. (2014) An In-Situ Study of Mobile Phone Notifications. Mobile HCI ’14.

• Goodwin, T. (2015) The Battle for the Customer Interface, in TechCrunch.com.

• Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., Vohs, K.D. (2001). Bad is Stronger than Good, in Review of General Psychology. Vol. 5, No. 4 pp. 323-370.

• McGuinness, B. (2004) Quantitative Analysis of Situational Awareness (QUASA): Applying Signal Detection Theory to True/False Probes and Self-Ratings. 2004 Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium.