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What is the Role of Usability and Trust in Autonomy?Usability encompasses learnability, efficiency, memorability, effectiveness, and satisfaction. NASA’s standards for usability acceptance criteria focus on interfaces that help operators achieve their tasks efficiently, effectively, and with satisfaction. However, discussions on usability, especially regarding future highly automated and autonomous systems, rarely include trust. As NASA plans for long-duration exploration missions, it envisions astronauts operating more independently from Mission Control on Earth. This independence will drive the development of these highly automated and autonomous systems that astronauts will use daily.

To prepare for this future, our team has developed a scheduling and execution software tool that facilitates self-scheduling, allowing astronauts to independently manage their own schedule without Mission Control’s involvement. Over many years, we have developed, matured, and evaluated our software tool in extreme environments, prioritizing user-centered design and high usability. These evaluations have included multiple campaigns in NASA analogs, including NEEMO, BASALT, and HERA, as well as technology demonstrations onboard the International Space Station.

Our recent research on software interfaces for future astronaut autonomy revealed a strong correlation between usability and trust measures. In a controlled lab experiment, we asked novice users to perform a complex scheduling task, during which the software immediately validated the schedule’s constraints and checked for violations. We collected usability (User Experience Questionnaire, UEQ) and trust (Trust in Automated Systems scale, TAS) measures; significant, strong, and moderate correlations emerged between several of the UEQ metrics and TAS. These results support the argument for investing in usability early to enable and sustain trust in highly automated and autonomous systems.
Document ID
20240004244
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Presentation
Authors
Jessica J. Marquez
(Ames Research Center Mountain View, United States)
Date Acquired
April 9, 2024
Subject Category
Man/System Technology and Life Support
Meeting Information
Meeting: DoD HFE TAG #76
Location: Huntsville, TX
Country: US
Start Date: April 22, 2024
End Date: April 26, 2024
Sponsors: United States Department of Defense
Funding Number(s)
WBS: 344494.02.01.16.01
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
Keywords
usability
autonomous systems
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