A Protocol for Human-Centric Adaptive User Interfaces: From Static Interaction to Behaviour-Driven Adaptation

Manufacturing production systems widely employ Human Machine Interfaces to guide workers and enable interactions with machines. The design of such interfaces often prioritize technological capabilities over User Experience design principles, resulting in standardized interfaces that do not adequately address user needs and provide them with excessive information. Adaptive User Interfaces present significant opportunities for enhancing traditional interfaces and improving the interactions with automation systems. In this work, a novel protocol is proposed to guide the design of adaptive, user-centered interfaces tailored to manufacturing contexts, shifting traditional static User Interfaces to advanced interfaces capable of adapting to users' behavior and characteristics. The protocol was applied in a controlled laboratory environment simulating an industrial assembly task, and 40 participants completed assembly tasks with the support of static and adaptive interfaces. The results demonstrated the protocol's effectiveness, highlighting that adaptive interfaces significantly reduce assembly time variability and errors, while enhancing user satisfaction by personalizing interactions based on user behavior.