TABLE OF CONTENTS Jan Ryles
Agilent Technologies
Loveland, Colorado
Considering the design of the instrument user interface [ ] is very important when selecting an instrument for a specific measurement task. The instrument user interface may be comprised of both hardware components and graphical user interface elements. Chapter 12 focuses on traditional hardware user interface components, including output and input devices. Chapter 44 focuses on the newer graphical user interfaces, which are becoming more commonplace in some instrument configurations.
[*] Adapted from Coombs, Electronic Instrument Handbook, 2nd Ed. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1996, Chapter 12, originally authored by Janice Bradford.
[ ] An instrument-user interface is any part of an instrument that the user comes into contact with, either physically, perceptually, or conceptually.
The quality of the hardware determines how the user will both learn to use and use the instrument system. For example, physical size, display resolution, processor speed, and ruggedness determine under what conditions users will be able to use the instrument and what measurements they will be able to make with it. For example, a telephone repair person will not carry a rack of heavy instruments up a telephone pole to do protocol testing on the lines. In addition, the available control knobs and built-in physical displays on the instrument determine both the ways the user will interact with it to perform measurements and the format of the data returned to the user, thereby dictating what measurements the user can and cannot make...
