Shift
Irritations
Typical problematic User Interface
experiences during HEP shifts in 2004
An irritating habit is transmitting messages that
are irrelevant to the shiftcrew, cryptic or
preferably both:
- Frequent run-control message: "Helix not
reset done". What does it mean, has it been
done or not? Is it important for the shiftcrew
to know? The answer: the shiftcrew doesn't
have to know that the helix chip received a
periodic reset because that is what it means.
- The audio message: "Audio system has
restarted": means the package has been
restarted as this happens once per hour. If
this alarm (?) message would not be
broadcasted, the shiftcrew would not detect its absence at all. If
one would like to get attention, it could
signal the hour: "It is one o clock". Then the
chances of detection of absence of audio
messages would be significantly higher
- When the voltage is set onto the Silicon
counters, the only way to know that it has
been done, is to listen to an audio message
that comes after about 2 minutes. No visual
aids are helping and no locking mechanism is
provided. This can lead to the situation that
during data-taking the shiftcrew thinks that
the voltage is on, while it is off. The audio
message says: "The MVD is O N". The word ON is
spelled, since the word ON sounds very much
like OFF. Hm, better would have been to use
the word OK like in air traffic conversations.
- When the voltage has been dropped from the
wire chambers an audio message is given.
However, also during the start of the read-out
this message is erroneously given. This leads
to not paying attention to the message in real
alarm cases.
Typing problems:
- Many user interfaces do not react at all
when the wrong command has been typed in.
Since often the correct reaction also takes
long (without any feedback), this can lead to
delays of minutes.
- To prevent accidental movement of part of
the detector (calorimeter) it is cleverly
protected by the command: SHIFT+GO. When typed
in with non-capital letters the interface just
does not react. To circumvent this
terrific feature of capital letters many
shiftcrew members have learned to set
CAPSLOCK.
- Instead of being able to use a script
coupled to a graphical interface, for many
commands one has to login to a computer, go to
a specific directory and type in a specific
command. If one is unlucky the password for
that computer cannot been found.
- Sometimes the command has to be executed
twice to have effect; a feature carefully
hidden from the shiftcrew.
Documentation:
- Sometimes the documentation on the WEB and
that in folders is contradictory and/or the
documentation is not up to date
- Often changes are documented by (too) many
yellow post-it notes on the consoles
- Unknown abbreviations
are used in commands and in documentation.
Usually they only become obvious if one knows:
e.g. the LDS is the Lumi-detector
Display
- The documentation sometimes contains words
from different languages (either that of the
manufacturer or that of the first writer of
the documentation) meaning nothing to
non-native speakers. "Enteerdet" looks like
"Entered" but means ungrounded in German.
Illogical location of indication lights:
- The LED indicating the clearance for
calorimeter movement by the accelerator crew
is placed in the same rack as the position
indicators for this movement, however 1.5
meters (!) below and not in the rack with all
indicators of the same type.
- An incorrect current value for a magnet is
indicated on the module by a red LED. However,
in this rack there are many red LED's and all
mean: crate switched-on. So an error is/was
not detected at all.
Ah well, one can always blame the shiftcrew for
their ignorance. If you want to do things better,
read as a starter e.g. "The Design of Everyday
Things" by Donald Norman.