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Ballot design problems can lead to voter errors and have affected the outcome of multiple elections in the United States. The goal of this research is to build an initial version of a model-based system for evaluation of ballots for potential usability problems. Eye-Tracking experiments were conducted to investigate voters’ strategies, and a family of 360 voting strategy models were developed using ACT-R cognitive architecture. Several types of voter error (retrieval error, recognition error, overvote, and undervote) were reproduced successfully.
In the past years, there have been hundreds of worker compensation claims from complaints of such as lower back pain, carpel tunnel syndrome, and eye strain. Since the main cause of the complaints should be the design of the workplace including the design of the computer workstation, it is important to conduct user research. Task analysis was conducted and related human limits and capabilities were examined. An improved workstation was then proposed according to principles of human factors.
Globally, medical error is a leading cause of death, and it can occur everywhere in the healthcare system. Most medical errors are preventable if the design of medical devices and systems are intuitive and properly evaluated. Human factors research is therefore critical in healthcare field. Usability assessment (heuristic evaluation, cognitive walkthrough, and usability experiment) was conducted to measure and investigate the efficiency, effectiveness, satisfaction, and safety of medical systems.
Due to the design of Houston MetroRail system, the system has the largest number of incidents per mile of any rail system in the United States. The interactions of trains, cars, and pedestrians at metro stations were investigated using 11 research methods (heuristic evaluation, error analysis, task analysis, flow analysis, etc.) Several system deficiencies were identified and design solutions were proposed to stakeholders to reduce traffic accidents.