Migration Tolerant Human Machine Interface Concepts in the domains of Air Traffic Control and Automotive

Abstract

The steady increasing degree of automation in the domains of air traffic management (ATM) and automotive is a major challenge for the design of human machine interfaces (HMI) to accurately support the use of tech-nical systems. Automation performance mostly increases stepwise and users usually adapt slowly to new environments. Nowadays a system replacement, especially in ATM goes along with a new monolithic HMI solution. This causes significant costs, requires extensive training for users and lowers acceptance for intro-duced systems. Our approach to avoid these effects bases on the illustrated HMI design concept. This con-cept enables the adaption of an operator by small and smooth learning steps. Transition phases between different display revision steps should be tolerant against migration and facilitate the user’s familiarization. Based on the knowledge of the current state of the art, HMI concepts should consider future developments, i.e. the state of research and technology in a specific domain with the predicted influence on the state of technology. This paper describes why a stepwise iterative HMI design with intermediary states is preferable against a one-step approach. We outline parallels and differences regarding automation and HMIs in both domains and describe tangible migration tolerant implementation concepts as well as potential synergies.