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October 2007

The Archives

• 10.29.07
  Putting the Systems Engineering in Cognitive Systems Engineering CSE Blog | (0)

  By rights, this should have a subtitle:  "What's all the hub-bub about?" When Jens Rasmussen basically started the field with his 1986 book "Information Processing, Human Machine Interaction, an approach to Cognitive Engineering", he coined the term Cognitive Engineering.  Since Jens was himself coming from a Control Systems Engineering background, the field has been engineering focused since its inception.  (His updated version "Cognitive Systems Engineering" in 1994 has tended to confuse things a bit among some practitioners in the field.)  Jens remains firmly an engineer at heart, saying the books are intended to help people think about, and build, better systems  ...
• 10.25.07
  Explanation? or a Recursive Path to AI Hell? CSE Blog | (0)

  Recently had the priviledge of participating in a workshop with some of the preeminent researchers in the Artificial Intelligence.  As you'd expect, the discussions were intellectually challenging and got extremely technical early...and stayed there.  As the results of the workshop were being assembled, several of the "reasoning" discussions (also called "agents", sometimes called "logic", in short, reasoning operating under several psuedonyms) the presenters inexorably came around to the subject of "How to explain the results of the reasoning to the users."  This is a classic AI subject, dating back to the beginnings of AI, and frankly one that remains vexing ...
• 10.25.07
  Another Predator Crash–Pilot Error or Latent Design Flaw? CSE Blog | (0)

  The NTSB recently released its findings on a 2006 Predator crash in Arizona. It made the news primarily because it was near a populated area; luckily no one was injured. If you've read any of the CSE in the News entries, or related Blog entries here, the predictable finding of Pilot(s) Error(s) really has a deeper underlying story. Was it really pilot error, or was this really a lingering design flaw just waiting for the right set of circumstances to complete the accident? The NTSB Report cites the handoff between pilots sharing the duties during a long endurance ...
• 10.18.07
  Situational Awareness, Common Knowledge, and Cognitive Systems Engineering CSE Blog | (0)

  Every Cognitive Systems Engineer is (or should be) trying to deliver a system design that improves mission critical (or read business critical) decision making.  Unfortunately, as with any discipline, particularly one as young and specialized as CSE, good engineering practice can be confused with things regarded as Common Knowledge.  This gets even more prevalent when an established practice like Design overlaps, and is stirred into the mix.  Design has been a discipline for centuries (when loosely associated with architecture or artist creation) and has therefore had a long time to develop 'common knowledge'. The trick with Common Knowledge is that it ...
• 10.18.07
  Innovation, Inventors, and CSE CSE Blog | (0)

  A recent article on cnn.com presented a description of an 'up and coming trend'...specialty companies that Invent on Demand.  (see http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/10/16/squid.labs/index.html) From this article: "...corporate demand for the expertise and imagination found in such small invention firms has risen to unprecedented levels of late..."  The article goes on to describe these firms and their activities, primarily discussing things chemical, mechanical, or computer. I was struck by the similarities to their goals...and the description of their work culture, and what it takes to apply Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) to the design of inventive, innovative visual Decision Support Systems:  it's multidiscipline, it's creative, ...
• 10.18.07
  How much Situational Awareness does it take to catch Osama? CSE Blog | (0)

  Ironically, the Common Knowledge appeal of words like Situational Awareness seems logical, but begs the question of how does a Cognitive Systems Engineer impact a real, operational work domain.  Intelligence Analysis, one of the key support functions in the Global War on Terror, is a classically difficult cognitive work domain.  It would seem then, that we should be able to "Improve Situational Awareness' and that would result in 'Better Intelligence Analysis' and Osama would found, fixed, and targeted (intel jargon).  As with most things in life, it's not that simple.  Cognitive Systems Engineering, as a sophisticated systems engineering discipline, is not ...
• 10.11.07
  “Look Dad, its an Instant Printer!”…or why we repeat systems engineering sins of the past CSE Blog | (0)

  During a design meeting the other day, the pre-meeting conversation turned to one of "those stories" that is probably urban legend, but the teller swears they know the guy that knows the guy...etc. The story essentially went: "A father and son were browsing through a yard sale, when the son came running back very excited about his find and demanding his father have a look. After dragging Dad through the rows and piles, he stopped proudly at his find: "Look Dad, its an Instant Printer! When you touch this button, the letter instantly appears on the ...

recent posts

• Part 4: Final Results-A Case Study in Cognitive Systems Engineering Usability Evaluation
• The Washington Post scoops the Cognitive Systems Engineering perspective on the DC Metro crash
• Part 3: Initial Insights to Customer-A Case Study in Cognitive Systems Engineering Usability Evaluation
• Part 2: Analysis by Inspection-A Case Study in Cognitive Systems Engineering Usability Evaluation
• Part 1: Background-A Case Study in Cognitive Systems Engineering Usability Evaluation
• Cognitive Systems Engineering meets DODAF: Building the Right Thing Well
• Wired Magazine discovers Cognitive Systems Engineering (they just didn’t know it)