Ecological Interface Design, the Proximity Compatibility Principle, and Automation Reliability in Road Traffic Management

In this paper, two user interfaces (UIs) are compared for supporting decision making in a road traffic management activity. Both UIs provide the information needed to make critical decisions related to traffic management and are designed according to ecological interface design (EID) concepts. One user interface design also incorporates concepts from the proximity compatibility principle (PCP). In addition to comparing the two UI designs, this paper considers the impact of the reliability of automation on user decision time and accuracy. It is shown that the UI designed with a combined of EID and PCP leads to significantly faster total task time, due to faster performance on the information gathering phase of the task. Contrary to expectations, time to gather information is not affected by automation reliability. Participants adapted their decisions according to automation reliability, even without explicit feedback to indicate reliability. Implications for UI design and decision making are discussed.