Symposium on Cognitive Compatibility of Aircraft Displays: A New Approach to an Old Problem

Abstract

Although the design of the interface in aircraft cockpits has long been recognised as an area requiring the application of Human Factors knowledge, relatively little progress has been made in the development of formal methods to support such a design process. The design cycle has tended to be based around the iterative prototyping and testing of candidate solutions, rather than the application of a priori design rules. Such an approach is sub-optimal since it relies on the utility of the initial candidate designs being correct. The approach can be likened to chamfering the corners of a square wheel, rather than specifying in advance that wheels should be round. It is also a relatively expensive and time consuming method of design since for each new display the whole process needs to be repeated, with little transfer from previous displays. This symposium presents an alternative approach to interface design through the generation of a priori design rules that will specify the cognitive compatibility (i.e. the compatibility of display representations and organisations with the inherent cognitive abilities and skills of the user) of display solutions. The papers in the symposium will describe a number of studies where the results were used to generate empirical design rules relevant to aviation displays. The viability and utility of integrating such rules into a tool to support the design of aircraft interfaces will be discussed.