Designing Functional Visualizations for Aircraft Systems Status Displays

Abstract

A number of researchers have observed that glass cockpit displays tend to be opaque and that this makes it difficult for the flight crew to develop accurate and comprehensive mental models of system functioning, thereby leading to errors in abnormal situations. However, few researchers have suggested how to create better functional visualizations of system behavior, and even fewer have provided examples of what such advanced displays might look like. This article describes how the principles of ecological interface design (EID), a framework developed in the context of process control, can be applied in aviation to design engineering systems status displays. A prototype EID interface for the fuel and engines of a Lockheed Hercules C-130 Model E-H aircraft was constructed using the VAPS prototyping tool. This study shows, for the first time, that EID can be meaningfully applied to aviation.