Time of Arrival/Lead Time UIWG
Presented By:
Xuning Tan, MDL
When:
29
April 2005, 9:00 MDT
FSL Attendees:
Woody Roberts, Joe Wakefield, Tom Filliagi, Susan
Williams
Teleconference
Attendees: Ed Mandel, Xuning Tan, Tom XXX,
Mike Magsig, John Feree
The Time of Arrival/Lead Time Tool (ToA) looks and behaves similar to
some of the other line and point tools in D2D (as well as WarnGen),
except it is specialized to provide time information, in the form of a
clock time and in time from current time (i.e.; "12:30" or " 45
minutes"). The ToA tool is accompanied by a small GUI, which provides a
few options and step-by-step instructions on how to use it.
Sample screen shots for this UIWG can be seen here.
Note:
After Xuning addresses the action items below, new screen shots will be
posted to the web page for review and comment.
The following points
were made regarding the Time of Arrival/Lead Time tool.
- Currently on the Time of Arrival GUI there are instructions on
how to use the tool. The UIWG group was in agreement that these were
not needed and would be best if removed. Adequate training is provided
by the training center to the forecasters. Also, if the GUI could
'feel' more like the Distance Speed tool, forecasters would intuitively
know how to use the tool. With removing the instructions, the real
estate taken up by the GUI would be decreased.
- The Time of Arrival and the Distance Speed tools seem to have a
lot of functionality in common. Then why are duplicating tools? It was
pointed out that in the future the ToA tool would be capable to
interact more with Scan in that it could 'attach' to a specific cell id
and track the position of the the cell. At some point however, the
capabilities of these two tools should be presented as a single tool.
- Does it matter if the user places the user places the 'Drag me to
feature' point at the present and then steps back into the past and
repositions the point in comparison to placing the point on the oldest
frame of data and then repositions the point in later in the loop of
loaded data?
- Discussed the presentation of local and Z time on the Time of
Arrival point. Mike Magsig indicated that the Norman office (the field)
would like to see the time on the Time of Arrival point in local time
as this would make more sense when conveying information to the
Emergency Managers. Those of other opinion stated that forecasters are
or should be comfortable converting Z time to their local time. Is this
something that could be user configurable? It was decided that both Z
and local time will be displayed on the Time of Arrival point.
- How does auto-update affect the ToA tool? It is noted that the
track does update when new data come in, however the Time of Arrival
point information (time and distance) are not recomputed. The
information displayed on the ToA point should recompute when new data
are received.
Action Items Resulting from UIWG:
- Move Time of Arrival/Lead Time
tool to the Tools menu.
- Modify GUI to remove instructions on how to use and give the GUI
the look and feel of the Distance Speed tool.
- Distance units on the Time of Arrival point should be in miles not
kilometers.
- On the Time of Arrival point, display both local and Z times.
- When a product auto-updates, the Time of Arrival point shall
recompute the time and distance of the point.
- Would be nice
to have a Reset button
on the GUI.
- Need to investigate what happens when the first frame of data in
the loop has aged off if the ToA point was initialized using this data.