Event driven timeline displays: beyond message lists in human-intelligent system interaction

One aspect of human-intelligent system cooperation is the set of mechanisms that help the human track the intelligent system´s assessment, recommendations, or actions with regard to the monitored process. The deficiencies of message lists for this purpose are outlined, and alternatives are discussed. The first step is to recognize that message lists are just one instance of temporally organized displays of information. A generic timeline display for event-driven applications such as human-intelligent system interaction in fault management is presented. In this domain, the cognitive task is to track and understand the sequence of events following a fault. This includes automatic and manual activities to ensure safety and intelligent system situation assessments, diagnoses, and recommended corrective actions in relation to the events in the monitored process