The Science of Safety - Usability Mapping Conference - 21-22 June 2023 — click for details
To find what you need to know about atmospheric testing, you would have to read through most of the document.
Users (in this case oil & gas field staff) typically don’t need all the information in this document - they need just the bits that apply to their field of expertise. The document, however, is written in classic technical documentation style which does not help them find the information they need.
That list of bullets also doesn’t help. Science has shown us that human cognitive limits are reached at five bullet points - beyond that, and our ability to recall information drops dramatically.
This is exactly the same document, with the same technical content.
But note how easy it is to find information now. The margin titles allow you to quickly scan for the section you need. In each chunk of information, there are no more than five bullet points, ensuring that you can better remember and use the information you need.
But there’s more to it than meets the eye. The type of language used in the document is designed to guide human behaviour (note the use of “must” instead of “should”). Cognitive links from the margin titles to the content helps users understand the information more accurately.
This is a more usable—and safer—document.
Good writing reads well. Good engineering works well.
Advertisers have long known that words—and how we present them—can be used to guide our behaviour. Industry is only now beginning to catch up.
Researchers like Abraham Maslow, George Miller, Sir John Eccles and Jacob Kantor have taught us about principles like human cognitive limits (no more than 5 bullet points please), psycholinguistics (when to use command language) and gestalt psychology (how we use white space to group related information).
This science, applied to written documentation, allows us to create documentation that guides human behaviour - even when you’re stressed or under time pressure.
The science underpinning Usability Mapping includes factors like:
This is the science of human cognitive behaviour applied to written documentation.
There’s a lot to the science—in fact, over 30 years of ongoing research and development.
The PQA (Promise, Question and Answer) construct is the most visible part of Usability Mapping. A title (Promise) at the top, margin titles (user Questions) down the side and Answers in the body.
But like most science, this is not just a question of making things look pretty. Titles are “predictors”, not just labels. Margin titles help users scan to find the information they need, and are constructed with cognitive keywords (or C-link keywords). Answers (or instructions) contain a nested C-link (cognitive link) with stem statements for more accurate understanding.
You don’t need to understand all of the science to create safer documentation, but you do have to care enough to give them every chance they have of getting home safely.
We can now create more usable, and safer, documentation based on the science of human cognitive behaviour—rather than relying on opinion.
By embedding these principles in documents, we can guide users to do the right thing at the right time, even when under stress.
Today, we:
Our vision should be your vision:
We envision the day when no operator anywhere in the world has to perform a procedure that does not follow the principles of human cognition and behavior.