Effects of system display format on performance in a fault location task

It has been suggested that complexity in fault diagnosis tasks is largely a function of problem complexity and little to do with the perceptual complexity of the format in which the system representation is displayed. An experimental study is reported which shows that a left-to-right diagonal display format improves the speed and diagnostic efficiency with which faults are located. The differences in display format which appear to be most beneficial do not affect problem-solving complexity in any obvious way. Differences in display format which could affect problem-solving complexity, such as constraints on direction of signal flow, do not apparently affect fault diagnosis performance. The improvements in performance apparently stem from an increased ability to perceive components of the system relevant to the observed symptoms.