Investigating the Effect of System Reliability, Risk, and Role on Users' Emotions and Attitudes toward a Safety-Critical Drone System

In safety-critical systems, it is essential to communicate relevant information to facilitate decision-making, promote trust, and improve performance without overloading users. To explore the effect of system performance information on rational and emotional processing by users, we performed a between-subject experiment in which participants were asked to imagine themselves as a drone operator or system administrator in a high-, medium-, or low-risk scenario. Then, based on their imagined scenario and role, participants rated the relevance of four aspects of system reliability to decision-making with the system, as well as the expected intensity of the GREAT emotions. Results indicate that system performance information affected participants’ reasoning differently depending on risk level. Moreover, participants had different perspectives depending on their role in the system. Those in administrator roles indicated higher respect ratings for those with a similar role. These findings demonstrate that contextual risk and a user’s role can influence emotions and attitudes toward safety-critical computer systems.