Designing for the Task: Sometimes 2-D is Just Plane Better

Abstract

There is a great military command and control need for better depiction of 3-D environments. Standard 2-D depictions can lead to inattention to altitude, especially for relative novices, and are generally inadequate. In a series of experiments we found that tasks requiring understanding the shapes of objects or terrain layout are much better performed using 3-D views, however tasks requiring precise judgments about the relative positions of objects or terrain locations were much better performed using 2-D views. We propose an interface concept called “Orient and Operate” for designing command and control displays. Users orient to the layout of a scene using a 3-D view, but then switch to 2-D views to interact or operate on it. In related work, we have found that 3-D icons are a mixed blessing: they are poor for identification, yet they code other attributes clearly (e.g. attitude), but this benefit is unrelated to 3-D depiction, per se.