Theses and Dissertations

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0009-0001-6411-5451

Advisor

Strawderman, Lesley

Committee Member

Wall, Emily

Committee Member

Smith, Brian

Committee Member

Burch, Reuben F.,V

Date of Degree

12-12-2025

Original embargo terms

Immediate Worldwide Access

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Industrial and Systems Engineering

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering

Department

Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Abstract

This study focuses on assessing the impact of incorporating systems integrated with in the workplace by assessing the constructs of usability, cognitive load, and trust. The constructs are assessed by generation and experience level to determine which factors are relevant in a workplace setting. A workplace scenario was simulated by asking participants to complete tasks where they assumed the role of a warehouse manager assigned with assessing two scheduling systems – one with artificial intelligence and one without artificial intelligence. The participants were presented with three tasks of increasing difficulty for each prototype. Both quantitative and qualitative measures were used to assess participant perception compared to actual performance. Overall, constructs were rated similarly across both prototypes. Usability proved to be a significant component for adoption. Participant’s age, which was operationalized as generation, did not significantly influence usability perceptions, but significance was shown for performed usability, cognitive load, trust, and performance. Experience level was assessed in two dimensions: experience level with technology and experience level with artificial intelligence. Experience level proved to be significant for usability, cognitive load, and trust assessments for both dimensions, with higher levels of experience corresponding with better perception. Additionally, it was found that participants significantly trust systems integrated with artificial intelligence for complex tasks, however this comes with the trade-off of more experienced users experiencing higher cognitive load. To improve adoption of systems with integrated artificial intelligence in the workplace, the findings of this study recommend companies focus on training and exposure to the system. Systems integrated with artificial intelligence that incorporate features providing assistance could have the potential of higher adoption over artificial intelligence integrated systems that do not. Transparency of the system’s actions will also be beneficial to help alleviate impacts to cognitive load of uses.

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