Ensuring Fast Interaction with HMI´s for Safety Critical Systems - An Extension of the Human-Machine Interface Design Method KONECT
Authors: Saager Marcel , Steinmetz Alexander , Osterloh Jan-patrick , Naumann Anja , Hahn Axel 
Published: January 2024

More and more automation of safety-critical transport systems, either in the railway sector, in the aviation sector or in maritime transport, is becoming part of the further development of many systems. However, humans are certainly not being removed from these systems. Their tasks are changing and the question of a human fallback level arises, to ensure the safe operation of autonomous systems. Concepts of this fallback level can be, monitoring centers for autonomous trains, modern control centers for future drone traffic in aviation or remote shore-control centers for autonomous shipping. Because the human factor plays a major role in these applications, it is important to design safety-systems that are used in such a way that HMI can be used easily and efficiently. In order to achieve this, a methodical approach is necessary, which ensures that the human-machine interfaces are designed appropriately during the design process.Design methods for safety-critical systems provide the developers with plenty of support when it comes to the specification of a system, in terms of requirements management, model-based development, validation and verification. However, designing the HMI of these safety-critical systems, is often still a very creative process. Also, the support for analyzing the specified HMI’s, with respect to Human Factors Issues is limited, and often done in separate teams and processes. It is up to the designers to consider standard human factors recommendations and design guidelines, as well as to follow a human-centered design approach. For this reason, Harre developed the KONECT method. The method can be used to develop HMI that are specifically optimized for fast and correct perception during monitoring tasks. The method has been tested in e-mobility and truck platooning applications, as well as for vessel monitoring in maritime environments.Due to the focus on monitoring, the current method is limited to the display of information elements, i.e. fast and correct perception. However, in order to be used in the development of systems, also the interaction with the system has to be possible. The interaction with a system can have a wide range of techniques, from standard GUI elements to more advanced techniques like gesture or speech recognition. Since this, we limit the scope to simple GUI elements, like Textboxes, Buttons, or Dropdowns. In this paper, we will describe this extension, as well as the first evaluation of the extended method. This leads to the following research question:RQ: What interaction elements are there for HMIs and what insights are necessary for them to ensure rapid interaction?Chapter 2 deals with the current design methods being considered for safety-critical systems, including a comprehensive presentation of the KONECT method. Chapter 3 then presents the new insights for interaction insights and elements. These are then integrated into the Idea Box (meaning of this becomes clear in chapter 2). In Chapter 4 a study was set up to validate the new interaction elements and insights. In this study, the subjects take on the role of a designer for remote control systems in the railway sector.