Project Title: Measuring visual salience to improve UX and Usability

Summary

I was the lead developer and team manager for Penn State’s team for DARPA’s PERCEPTS project as part of a multi-team initiative to improve the design of human-machine interfaces for high-stakes systems like Remote UAV Control Panels. My role encompassed a broad scope. I lead our team to successfully research comparable programs, identify a suitable candidate for measuring visual salience, and programmed new visualization techniques into the tool to better support stakeholder goals and user needs. This tool will be used by the developers that are building the next generation of civilian and military technology. My work on this project concluded in April 2023.

Stakeholders

Use Case

This tool replaces the highly subjective practice of manually assessing the relative visual salience of alarms, icons, and other information on the screen. For high-stakes, complex interfaces like Air Traffic Control systems or Power Plant Control Centers, this tool helps you create an objective measure capturing ease of detection across a variety of system states.

For high-stakes, complex interfaces like Air Traffic Control systems or Power Plant Control Centers, this tool helps you create an objective measure capturing ease of detection across a variety of system states.

Outcomes

• This is a multi-year project that will collect and analyze human data, develop a new Human-Machine Interface Builder application, and create new standards for handling visual salience on complex interfaces.
• My work directly lead to this project’s ongoing success. I researched alternative programs and processes for measuring this data, and I presented the case for my proposed toolkit during program meetings.
• Upon approval from key stakeholders, I was the lead developer for the new application. I successfully implemented new visualization techniques and new methods for analyzing the underlying salience data. These visualizations helped stakeholders at Charles River Analytics, Inc and SA Technologies assess prototype designs using a model of human vision that can predict a user’s success at detecting and responding to information on an interface.
• Throughout the project, I served as team manager by setting meetings and ensuring we were following an agenda that would help us meet stakeholder needs. I served to mentor and guide other team members to better achieve the project goals, and I helped clarify key performance indicators to ensure that team members felt confident they were working towards a shared goal.
• I also have lead the weekly team meetings with the full multi-company stakeholder group. I summarized team findings, identified useful products to share with stakeholders, and helped clarify stakeholder positions for the team through open discussion with fellow leaders.