Enhancing situation awareness (SA) is a major design goal for projects in many fields, including aviation, ground transportation, command and control, air traffic control, nuclear power, medicine, space, and systems maintenance. Many of the errors and failures that have been found to occur in complex systems are the result of failures in SA. The creation of SA-oriented system designs should directly reduce the incidence of such problems. However, little information has been available previously on the integrated systems design issues necessary to support the designer in creating systems that overcome data overload and provide high levels of SA. Designing for Situation Awareness provides a means for creating the truly user-centered system designs that are needed in today's complex world. Based on theoretical and empirical knowledge on SA, the book provides methodology and design guidance for creating systems that will keep operator SA high in order to support real-time decision-making and performance requirements. This book is directed at designers, human factors researchers, and practitioners in a wide variety of fields, and is liberally illustrated with actual design examples. It also supports graduate-level teaching on SA and design, and is relevant to human factors and engineering professionals in both the U.

S. and Europe. Book jacket.