Design of an eTextbook

This project was completed as a requirement for cognitive engineering course in my Ph.D. program.  It was a team project focused on developing early design requirements for an eTextbook (i.e., a digital solution to physical textbooks).  Because of the many tasks that current physical textbooks support (e.g., annotation, bookmarking, highlighting, etc.) and the many different ways students (and faculty) interact with them, our team adopted a work domain analysis to develop an abstraction hierarchy.

Work domain analysis is part of the cognitive work analysis (CWA) methodology which is unique compared to more traditional engineering methods as it focuses on identifying the requirements, constraints, and affordances for cognitive work in a domain.  CWA was originally proposed by Rasmussen et al. (1994) and further refined by Vicente (1999) as a means to support the design of complex systems that would be more adaptable under unanticipated operating conditions.   Since its original application to the design of process control systems, CWA has been adapted and successfully applied to other complex domains and systems.  Across these domains and systems, CWA has effectively been shown to support the design of novel interface displays through its ability to produce models of work objectives combined with constraints and affordances that inhibit or support those objectives.  Additionally, as Bisantz and Roth (2003) illustrated, CWA is particularly effective for design of novel systems requiring adaptability based on unanticipated domain conditions.

The final report generated by my team, along with a design process overview and final recommendations, can be viewed below.