Human-Computer Etiquette

294 Human– Computer etiquette

2007). For example, McFarlane and Latorella (2002) describe the impact

of task scheduling and interruptions on overall system performance of

the AEGIS Weapons System, which coordinates the activities of over

35 sailors simultaneously and generates many dierent alerts and inter-

ruptions. An exercise using the system in the mid-1990s revealed that

the system was sending alerts to some human operators every 11.5 sec-

onds, each alert requiring a minimum of 5 seconds to address.

Many systems have been built to manage interruptions. One key

element is some consideration of the user’s current tasks or work-

load to determine how “busy” or interruptible a person is at a given

time. e ability to predict someone’s inte ...