Shaping trust through transparent design: Theoretical and experimental guidelines

Abstract

The current research discusses transparency as a means to enable trust of automated systems. Commercial pilots (N = 13) interacted with an automated aid for emergency landings. The automated aid provided decision support during a complex task where pilots were instructed to land several aircraft simultaneously. Three transparency conditions were used to examine the impact of transparency on pilot’s trust of the tool. The conditions were: baseline (i.e., the existing tool interface), value (where the tool provided a numeric value for the likely success of a particular airport for that aircraft), and logic (where the tool provided the rationale for the recommendation). Trust was highest in the logic condition, which is con-sistent with prior studies in this area. Implications for design are discussed in terms of promoting understanding of the rationale for automated recommendations.