Usability in the Airplane Cockpit
A recent AP news story told of how a pilot who lost radio communications was surprised to find his plane surrounded by security forces as he landed. He thought he had entered 7600, the code for "lost communications," but code 7500 told those on the ground that he was being hijacked.
Creating unique security codes can be a usability challenge, especially if you want them to be easy for pilots to remember, but difficult for potential hijackers to discern. Experts in human factors and usability work to create airplane cockpits and communications systems that reduce the chance for human error.
Paul Sherman, UPA Director of Chapters, spent dozens of hours on the flight deck during a research project. One common usability problem for pilots of highly automated aircraft is "getting behind the airplane," he says. The airplane's computer is constantly making changes to the flight heading, airspeed, and vertical speed, he explained, and the pilots struggle to keep up with these changes.
One commonly accepted principle of usability is "observability," or how well a system's actions and displays help users understand what a system is doing.
Ideally, automated systems would ensure that pilots are aware of what the plane is doing, why it is doing that, and what it is going to do next, Sherman says. "The goal is to keep the pilots in control, even when the computer is helping fly the plane."
World Usability Day 2007 is sponsored by:
