Models for human computer interaction in scheduling applications

Abstract

There are many algorithms to solve scheduling problems, but in practice the knowledge of human experts almost always needs to be involved to get satisfiable solutions. However, human computer interaction in scheduling applications is often designed in a way, that does not leave much room for own decisions to the user. In this paper, we describe a set of decision support features that can be used to improve the human-computer-interaction in scheduling applications. Based on a study with 35 test subjects and overall 105 h of usability testing we verify that the use of the features improves both quality and practicability of the produced schedules.