Usability study of shift logbooks in physics experiments at CERN

Abstract

Scientific experiments conducted at CERN are vast collaborations often concerning scientists scattered around the world. Measures have been taken for distributing the data gathered by the detectors such as ATLAS and ALICE. But not only the detector data is needed to understand what triggered the event. Entries into the logbooks used by scientists running the accelerators and monitoring the detectors are also of importance. Traditionally scientists made entries into paper logbooks regarding changes into the the setup of the experiment. Problems and solutions to them were other common entries. The paper logbook is a natural and easy to use interface for making entries. Problems arise when there is need to search logbooks and share them with a large community. Electronic logbooks make it possible to search and share logbooks. Therefore most large experiments have adopted some sort of electronic logbook. How well has the transition from paper to electronic logbooks been adopted? Does the usability of these electronic logbooks answer the needs of scientists? Do the applications offer the functionality needed by the scientists?

A contextual design study was made into the use of logbooks within CERN control center (CCC) and ATLAS. This was done in order to get a better understanding about how scientists use their electronic and paper logbooks and to discover what shortcomings the electronic logbooks have compared to the paper logbook. Some new functionality that would be worth incorporating into the logbook was found, including guidance for better entries and free-form entries. The usability of the CCC eLogbook interface was evaluated. A usability evaluation of the user interface was conducted. The study revealed a set of problems and a proposal for improvement was given.

The study shows that most electronic logbook used today are in-house developed applications which have an air of ad-hoc development around them. They claim to take usability into account. Still, the user-interfaces are sometimes cumbersome and lack certain functionality. Therefore paper logbook are still frequently used, mainly for personal notes. However these personal notes include calculations, problem solving, etc. which formerly was entered into official paper logbooks. This results in a coarser record of events in the electronic logbooks compared to paper logbooks.