Borghouts, JW;
Soboczenski, F;
Cairns, P;
Brumby, DP;
Visualising Magnitude: Graphical Number Representations Help Users Detect Large Number Entry Errors.
In:
(Proceedings) HFES 2015 International Annual Meeting.
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Abstract
Nurses frequently have to programme infusion pumps to deliver a prescribed quantity of drug over time. Occasional errors are made in the performance of this routine number entry task, resulting in patients receiving the incorrect dose of a drug. While many of these number entry errors are inconsequential, others are not; infusing 100 ml of a drug instead of 10 ml can be fatal. This paper investigates whether a supplementary graphical number representation, depicting the magnitude of a number, can help people detect number entry errors. An experiment was conducted in which 48 participants had to enter numbers from a ‘prescription sheet’ to a computer interface using a keyboard. The graphical representation was supplementary and was shown both on the ‘prescription sheet’ and the device interface. Results show that while overall more errors were made when the graphical representation was visible, the graphical representation helped participants to detect larger number entry errors (i.e., those that were out by at least an order of magnitude). This finding suggests that visualising magnitude can prevent large errors. The contribution of this paper is that it shows how a graphical representation can be a useful aid in helping users detect large number entry errors.
| Type: | Proceedings paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | Visualising Magnitude: Graphical Number Representations Help Users Detect Large Number Entry Errors |
| Event: | HFES 2015 International Annual Meeting |
| Location: | Los Angeles, CA |
| Dates: | 2015-10-26 - 2015-10-30 |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > UCL Interaction Centre |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1468540 |
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