Evaluation of formats for aircraft control/display units

Control/display unit (CDU) technology has been advancing more rapidly than the human factors research needed to establish guidelines for the design of display formats. Such guidelines must be established and followed to ensure effective and efficient human performance in the cockpit environment. A preliminary study which addressed the issue of defining an optimal CDU display format design was completed. Subjects were asked to search visually alphanumeric displays for a single piece of information and indicate when it was found. Data were collected on the elapsed time to isolate the information as well as the accuracy of the information retrieval. Ten formats of two information densities each were evaluated. Each format contained labels and associated data for typical flight information such as communications data (radio type and frequency) and navigation data (waypoint identifier, longitude and latitude). The ten basic format designs were developed by changing the location relationship between the labels and their associated data. Data were collected while subjects did and did not perform a two-dimensional tracking task. Preliminary findings indicate that both format design and density affect operator response time and response accuracy. Implications of the results for the design of cockpit displays are discussed.