Designing touch screen user interfaces for future flight deck operations

Avsar, Huseyin; Fischer, Joel E.; Rodden, Tom

Abstract

Many interactional issues with Flight Management Systems (FMS) in modern flight decks have been reported. Avionics designers are seeking for ways to reduce cognitive load of pilots with the aim to reduce the potential for human error. Academic research showed that touch screen interfaces reduce cognitive effort and provide an intuitive way of interaction. A new way of interaction to manipulate radio frequencies of avionics systems is presented in this paper. A usability experiment simulating departures and approaches to airports was used to evaluate the interface and compare it with the current system (FMS). In addition, interviews with pilots were conducted to find out their personal impressions and to reveal problem areas of the interface. Analyses of task completion time and error rates showed that the touch interface is significantly faster and less prone to user input errors than the conventional input method (via physical or virtual keypad). Potential problem areas were identified and an improved interface is suggested.

Citation

Avsar, H., Fischer, J. E., & Rodden, T. (2016). Designing touch screen user interfaces for future flight deck operations.

• Conference Name: IEEE/AIAA 35th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC)
• End Date: Sep 29, 2016
• Acceptance Date: Sep 20, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Dec 12, 2016
• Publication Date: Sep 25, 2016
• Deposit Date: Oct 6, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 6, 2016
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: Flight deck design, Avionics, Touch screen, User interface, Usability test, Input device, Comparative study
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/809490
• Publisher URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7777976/
• Related Public URLs: http://2016.dasconline.org/
• Additional Information: © 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
• Contract Date: Oct 6, 2016