An overview of population stereotypes for common control-display configurations in human-machine interface

Using real mechanical controls, this paper studied strength and reversibility of direction-of- motion stereotypes and response times for most common control-display configurations in human- machine interface. The effect of instruction of change (I) of display value and control plane (P) on movement compatibility for various control-display configurations were analyzed with precise quantitative measures of strength and reversibility index of stereotype. Comparisons on the mean stereotype strengths and indexes of reversibility among the rotary control-circular display, rotary control-digital counter, rotary control-horizontal scale, rotary control-vertical scale, four-way lever- circular display and four-way lever-digital counter combinations were analyzed. The results showed that the best control-display configuration was the rotary control-circular display combination. The performance of the rotary control-digital counter, rotary control-horizontal scale and the four-way lever-circular display configurations were of comparable magnitude. The poorest configurations found in this study were the four-way lever-digital counter and the rotary control-vertical scale combinations. In general, subjects' response times were found to be generally longer when there were no clear movement stereotypes. The results of this study provide significant implications for the industrial design of control panels used in human-machine interfaces for improved human performance.