User Interface Design for Maintenance/Troubleshooting Expert System

Expert systems applications for special environments impose special requirements on the user-system interface. A study was conducted to determine requirements and define a design concept for the interface for an expert system being developed to support corrective maintenance and troubleshooting of gas turbine electronic equipment and controls. The resulting design specifies a portable unit containing color flat panel video/graphics display, special function membrane keypad, miniature printer, and headset with voice input/output. Communication with the expert system is structured by multiple-window information presentation and voice-activated control functions.