Human Factors Material for World-Wide-Web Site

Extensions and refinements were made to DCIEMs Human Factors Engineering HFE Guide, containing a variety of standards information currently accessible to users on an Internet demonstration site supplied by AIM. A key addition to the Guide was the use of cookies, which now allows the Guide to restore the state of a variety of variables when that user returns from other sections or after logging off and returning at a later time. The restored state includes Items in the standards that were bookmarked by the user and the results of the users last search. Additional material was added to the Guide and redundancy removed from two sections of its sections. For one of those, a re-design of the Java interface was required. Although plans were to upload the Guide to the DRDC DWAN and Public www sites, technical issues prevented that task from being completed in this work phase. Two unresolved issues relate to policies surrounding the use of cookies and to the use of Java on the DRDC sites. Discussion will continue with the Scientific Authority and the Manager of the DRDC site in an attempt to resolve those issues in a way that will allow the HFE Guide to be included on one or more sites. Finally, some future enhancements to the Guide were examined and requirements for eleven new tasks discussed. A number of uncertainties surround those tasks but, in principle, all can be achieved. Costs and timing estimates were provided.