Abstract
Number entry is ubiquitous and there are several ways a number entry interface can be designed. Until recently, research has been focused mainly on one type of number entry interface: the numeric keypad. Various factors such as the range of values, and the space available for the design allows for several alternative interfaces to be used for number entry. In the design of medical devices such as those used for controlled drug delivery, accurate and timely entry of numbers are required in order to reduce any risk of harm to patients. This paper reviews five number entry interface styles and reports the result of an experiment conducted to evaluate the performance differences of the interfaces based on numbers used in infusion therapy in a hospital. The result shows a significant effect of interface style on speed and accuracy.
Chapter PDF
References
National Patient Safety Agency: Safety in doses: medication safety incidents in the NHS. The fourth report from the Patient Safety Observatory (2007)
Bender, G.T., Dean, D.G., Dean, V.: Touch Screen Performance as a Function of the Duration of Auditory Feedback and Target Size. Liberal Arts and Sciences, Wichita State University: 7 (1999)
Card, S.K., Moran, T.P., Newell, A.: The keystroke-level model for user performance time with interactive systems. Commun. ACM 23(7), 396–410 (1980)
Cauchi, A., Gimblett, A., Thimbleby, H., Curzon, P., Masci, P.: Safer “5-key” number entry user interfaces using Differential Formal Analysis. In: Proceedings of HCI 2012 the 26th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction, pp. 29–38 (2012)
Conrad, R., Hull, A.J.: The preferred layout for numeral data-entry keysets. Ergonomics 11(2), 165–173 (1968)
Doherty, C., Donnell, C.M.: Tenfold Medication Errors: 5 Years’ Experience at a University-Affiliated Pediatric Hospital. Pediatrics 129(5) (2012)
Gimblett, A., Thimbleby, H.: User Interface Model Discovery: Towards a Generic Approach. In: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems, EICS 2010, pp. 145–154 (2010)
ISMP: Double key bounce and double keying errors. Medication Safety Alert! Acute Care Edition (2006)
Keohane, C.A., Hayes, J., Saniuk, C., Rothschild, J.M., Bates, D.W.: Intravenous medica- tion safety and smart infusion systems: lessons learned and future opportunities. Journal of Infusion Nursing 28(5), 321–328 (2005)
Lesar, T.S.: Tenfold medication dose prescribing errors. The Annals of Pharmacotherapy 36(12), 1833–1839 (2002)
Marteniuk, R.G., Ivens, C.J., Brown, B.E.: Are there task specific performance effects for differently configured numeric keypads? Applied Ergonomics 27(5), 321–325 (1996)
Menninger, K.: Number Words and Number Symbols: A Cultural History of Numbers. Dover Publications (1992)
Norman, D.A.: The design of everyday things. BasicBooks (2002)
NPSA:Reducing harm from omitted and delayed medicines in hospital. Rapid Response Report NPSA/2010/RRR009 (2010)
Oladimeji, P.: Towards safer number entry in interactive medical systems. In: Proceedings of the 4th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems, pp. 329–332 (2012)
Oladimeji, P., Thimbleby, H., Cox, A.: Number entry interfaces and their effects on error detection. In: Campos, P., Graham, N., Jorge, J., Nunes, N., Palanque, P., Winckler, M. (eds.) INTERACT 2011, Part IV. LNCS, vol. 6949, pp. 178–185. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Deininger, R.L.: Human factors engineering studies of the design and use of push button telephone sets. Bell System Technical Journal 39(4), 995–1012 (1960)
Schedlbauer, M.: Effects of key size and spacing on the completion time and accuracy of input tasks on soft keypads using trackball and touch input. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting 51(5), 429–433 (2007)
Thimbleby, H.: PressOn: Priciples of Interaction Programming. The MIT Press (2007)
Thimbleby, H., Cairns, P.: Reducing number entry errors: solving a widespread, serious problem. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 7(51), 1429–1439 (2010)
Vicente, K.J., Kada-Bekhaled, K., Hillel, G., Cassano, A., Orser, B.A.: Programming errors contribute to death from patient-controlled analgesia: case report and estimate of probability. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia 50(4), 328–332 (2003)
Westbrook, J.I., Rob, M.I., Woods, A., Parry, D.: Errors in the administration of intravenous medications in hospital and the role of correct procedures and nurse experience. BMJ Quality & Safety (2011)
Wiseman, S., Cairns, P., Cox, A.: A taxonomy of number entry error. In: Proceedings of the 25th BCS Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, pp. 187–196. British Computer Society (2011)
Wiseman, S., Cox, A., Brumby, D.: Designing for the task: what numbers are really used in hospitals? In: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts, pp. 1733–1738 (2012)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Oladimeji, P., Thimbleby, H., Cox, A.L. (2013). A Performance Review of Number Entry Interfaces. In: Kotzé, P., Marsden, G., Lindgaard, G., Wesson, J., Winckler, M. (eds) Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2013. INTERACT 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8117. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40483-2_26
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40483-2_26
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-40482-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-40483-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)