The dilemma of information structure is about the type and amount of operational information that should be displayed on screen. Specifically, it is about whether to display all relevant information to ensure situation awareness or to show only the most important information to facilitate the user orientation ( interactive search ).
The dilemma is about options, modes, setup parameters and other variables that should be displayed on screen and also how to display the relevant information so that the operators should notice it.
For each context variable, we need to consider the possible consequences of the user assuming the wrong context value. The system should provide a salient indication about risky context values.
Context-sensitive screens used in routine operation should provide special salient indication about context variables with exceptional values.
Apply visual cues to enable quick recognition of exceptional values. On each screen, show all information that may affect the behavior of any control on screen
Do not present irrelevant information that may take too long to read
When applicable, show the users all parameters that may affect the way the system would respond to control activation
When there are too many parameters to display, show first those that deviate from the default data
Track the parameter changes and show the history of the changes of the relevant parameters
Enable the users to explicitly hide the setup parameters.
Updated on 08 Mar 2017.