The design and adoption of decision support sys-
tems within complex work domains is a challenge for
cognitive systems engineering (CSE) practitioners, par-
ticularly at the onset of project development. This arti-
cle presents an example of applying CSE techniques to
derive design requirements compatible with traditional
systems engineering to guide decision support system
development. Specifically, it demonstrates the require-
ments derivation process based on cognitive work anal-
ysis for a subset of human spaceflight operations known
as extravehicular activity. The results are presented in
two phases. First, a work domain analysis revealed a
comprehensive set of work functions and constraints
that exist in the extravehicular activity work domain.
Second, a control task analysis was performed on a
subset of the work functions identified by the work
domain analysis to articulate the translation of subject
matter states of knowledge to high-level decision sup-
port system requirements. This work emphasizes an
incremental requirements specification process as a
critical component of CSE analyses to better situate
CSE perspectives within the early phases of traditional
systems engineering design.
Decision Support System Requirements Definition for Human Extravehicular Activity Based on Cognitive Work Analysis
