Case study

Automating the Mining Process

Role

UX Designer

Duration

June 2015 -
Sept 2015

June 2015 - Sept 2015

Employer

Pacific Science & Engineering

Contributions

UX design

User research

Context

During my time at Pacific Science and Engineering, I had the opportunity to work with a client in the drilling industry. I was brought in, along with two colleagues, to consult on the design of the interface used by drill operators to control and monitor autonomous drills from a control room. As the sole designer on the project, I worked closely with a human factors engineer.

Challenge

Context

Our challenge was to evaluate and provide guidance on the software that drill operators used to control and monitor multiple autonomous drills. With the existing user interface, operators struggled to effectively manage multiple drills from the control room. They were working in a fast-paced, high-risk environment where errors were costly and dangerous. Our task was to find ways to make the drill operator’s job easier while balancing the relationship between human operators and autonomous machines, and building trust in that interaction.

During my time at Pacific Science and Engineering, I had the opportunity to work with a client in the drilling industry. I was brought in, along with two other colleagues, to consult on the design of the current interface used by drill operators to control and monitor autonomous drills from a control room. I was the sole designer on the project, working closely with a human factors engineer.

Challenge

Our challenge was to evaluate and give guidance on a software that was used by drill operators to control and monitor multiple autonomous drills. With the current user interface, drill operators couldn’t effectively monitor and control (multiple) drills from a control room. They are working in a fast-paced, high-risk environment, and the cost of error is expensive and high. How could we help to make the job of drill operator easier, while also instilling trust and balance between the human drill operator and the autonomous machines?

Research method

For this project, I visited the mining site to observe the day-to-day work of drill operators firsthand. Through contextual inquiry, we gained a deeper understanding of the workflow between human operators, autonomous systems, and the UI that connected the two. We also examined the physical drills and the surrounding environment to consider external factors that could impact the operator's work.

Research Findings

#1. Drill operators are reactive to issues that occur.

Problems often arise unexpectedly, leaving drill operators to reactively address issues as they happen, rather than being able to proactively prevent them.

#2. Attention is spread thin across multiple screens and tasks.

Drill operators manage multiple tasks simultaneously, often spread across various screens and monitors. This can lead to missing high-priority issues when they arise.

#3. Drill operators go into “tunnel vision” and lose situational awareness.

When drill operators are focused on highly demanding tasks that require their full attention, they may lose situational awareness of other ongoing activities and their environment.

#4. Cognitive overload becomes and issue when multiple drills are involved.

Operators are generally efficient up to a point, but when monitoring four or more drills, the process begins to break down. As the number of drills increases, cognitive overload becomes a significant issue, as the current UI doesn’t effectively support scalability.

Workflow

Solution

Given our limited three-month engagement, we focused on areas where we could make the most impact. We decided to deliver 1) small but impactful usability improvements for immediate benefit, and 2) design concepts that addressed the major pain points and improved scalability for monitoring additional drills.

Concepts

For proprietary reasons, I cannot show the user interface or designs that were delivered. However, below are some abstracted concepts for the problems we were trying to solve with our design solution.

Aggregrating information

A major theme we focused on was organizing and aggregating information at higher levels. By providing drill operators with enhanced situational awareness, they can monitor the health and performance of all drills without experiencing cognitive overload.

Applying saliency

One key insight we discovered was that drill operators often faced notification overload. As a result, high-priority issues sometimes go overlooked. We suggested using colors and notifications strategically to enhance the visibility of urgent information while reducing the prominence of less critical updates.

Applying saliency

Support proactive monitoring

By collaborating with the development team to understand the types of data that could be collected and the available level of granularity, we designed features, such as predicting ground density, to assist drill operators with proactive monitoring and situational awareness. This would enable drill operators to identify and resolve issues before they arise.