Heed: A Framework for Situation Aware Monitoring

Technology users are technology observers as well: monitoring for problems or opportunities that might arise. Designing interfaces to support the monitoring of technology presents unique challenges: from detecting situations to responding to situations, to changing the tools to match a changing operating environment or the changing knowledge of the observer.

I present «Heed»: a scale and framework to help observers of a system evaluate which situations need scrutiny and when, along with an example heed-based interface that encourages the development of situation awareness. I discuss how the framework and interface can be applied to four different situations: server performance, a business’s finances, user experience in a community forum, and the risk of disease outbreak at a veterinary clinic.