Visualization-Guided Attention Direction in Dynamic Control Tasks

In high-paced applications like air traffic control, disaster management, and medical triage, information is often routed through a central location such as a dispatch or control center. In this work, we introduce a set of color-coded and gaze-Aware visualizations designed to simultaneously manage both information priority and user attention. These notifications are unique in that they not only respond to whether or not they have been observed by the user, but they use color to represent the priority of the object to assist processing of other incoming information in the environment. We built both heads-up display (HUD)-based and in-situ information management paradigms and combined these with gaze and color visualizations. In an interactive virtual reality (VR) control center simulation, HUD visualizations slightly reduced unnecessary head movement without sacrificing performance, but were distracting to participants.