Work-centered Support System technology: a new interface client technology for the battlespace infosphere

Information superiority is a strategic goal of the US Air Force. To achieve this goal the Air Force aims to produce a battlespace infosphere that will provide an unprecedented degree of connectivity and availability of raw data and value-added information for warfighter use. The essential challenge of the infosphere is to be able to provide the right information, at the right time, in the right form to enable warfighters to take effective, coordinated action. Although the infosphere's core web and agent technologies are clearly able to provide a heterogeneous infosphere, improved interface technologies are also needed to address problems of information overload and how to provide support to specific end-users without the support tools themselves becoming an impediment to task performance. We have developed a prototype Work-Centered Support System software client as a means to address these interface issues. The WCSS approach achieves effective support in a software agent environment by blending direct manipulation work field organization, and decision, collaborative, and product development aiding in a manner that is tailored to both formal and informal characteristics of user work. In this paper we describe the philosophy behind and characteristics of the WCSS technology. We illustrate the technology with a discussion of an interactive WCSS prototype designed to improve support to military airlift mission planners at the headquarter level.