Spark : a tool to assess procedure complexity

Using procedures is usual in industries where there is a need to reduce human error. However, producing a usable procedure remains a challenge as technical experts are not always at ease to produce well-written instructions on how to carry out tasks. Common issues with procedures and instructions include verbosity, difficulties in understanding the procedure, and complexity of the decision-making involved. There are very few tools available to procedure writer, beyond spelling and grammar checking, to get an objective assessment of the usability of procedures and instructions. This paper will introduce Spark - a new algorithm that was developed for space applications and that can be used to examine a written procedure in virtually any other domain. Spark will assess various characteristics of the procedure such as its legibility and its complexity regarding the decision-making required from the user. Legibility is assessed using a multilingual legibility index, while decision-making complexity is assessed using a metric known as cyclomatic complexity (CC). Spark can be used to assess various types of text-based procedures and instructions, be they operating manuals, emergency operating procedures and various so-called guidelines. This new algorithm was validated in experimental settings and the results indicate that Spark provide a useful assessment of procedure complexity. (author)