Suggestions in Improving Interface Design for Computer Based Log Analysis

by
Jirapa Skolnakorn, M.S.E.

University of Texas at Austin, 1995
Supervisor: Steven L. Morriss

Computers have become more widely used in the petroleum industry because they have become more affordable and more powerful. Tedious and repetitive calculations that were done manually can now be done quickly and accurately by using computers. Some computer programs can perform complex computations, but they also have very steep learning curves including those used for log analysis. As such, much time is required to learn how to use them.

One of the approaches to make the learning curve less steep is to develop an improved human interface. A particularly effective technique is to incorporate an improved graphical user interface into the program. This would also allow the users to use the programs with greater ease and efficiency. Many powerful, but very complex, log analysis programs require the users to have extensive training to use them, whereas an improved interface design for them would allow users to exploit their capabilities more readily. As a result, valuable information from well logs would be available to more people.

This thesis will discuss the ways to improve the human interface design in log analysis software. It will first discuss the needs of users in using computers to analyze well log data. Then it will examine existing designs of log analysis programs. Aspects of the users' interactions using the computer programs, their general approach in using them, and what their suggestions were in improving the interface designs will be discussed. The thesis will mention the feature that were incorporated into a suggested interface design from results of the observations.

An interface design for a log analysis program was developed by using Object-oriented programming; in this case the language used was Objective-C in the NeXTSTEP environment. The thesis will justify why the object-oriented approach was considered to be the most efficient style of programming and why it was selected. In conclusion, the thesis will explore the possible impact of improving the human interface design for computer-based log analysis.

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