MAP-01-011 HFI Technical Guide - Human Factors Integration ...

Annex 3 – HF Techniques, Methods and Tools• Disadvantages• SWAT can be intrusive if administered on-line.• When SWAT is administered after the fact, participants may have forgottenhigh or low workload aspects of the task.• Pro-SWAT has yet to be validated thoroughly and is still in its infancy.• In a number of validation studies it has been reported that the NASA TLX issuperior to SWAT in terms of sensitivity, particularly for low mentalworkloads.• The initial SWAT combination ranking procedure is very time consuming(No citation reference - Luximon & Goonetilleke 2001).• Workload ratings may be correlated with task performance e.g. subjectswho performed poorly on the primary task may rate their workload as veryhigh and vice versa. This is not always the case.A3.6.6Subjective Workload Dominance (SWORD) TechniqueSWORD is a subjective workload assessment technique that has been used bothretrospectively that uses a paired comparison of tasks in order to provide a ratingof workload for each individual task.SWORD is administered post trial and participants are required to rate one task’sdominance over another in terms of workload imposed.• Advantages• SWORD is easy to learn and use, and is very quick in its application.• It is non intrusive, has a high face validity and has been demonstrated tohave a sensitivity to workload variations.• Disadvantages• The SWORD technique has not been as widely used as other workloadassessment techniques, such as SWAT and the NASA TLX.• Data is collected post-trial.A3.6.7Workload Profile TechniqueThe workload profile technique is a multi-dimensional subjective mental workloadassessment technique that is based upon participant’s rating the demandimposed by the task under analysis for each dimension as defined by multipleresource theory. The workload dimensions are:• Perceptual/Central processingMay 2006 Page A3-49 Issue 4