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The development and evaluation process of the Tower Flight Data Manager prototype at Dallas Ft. Worth airport is described. Key results from the first field evaluation are presented, including lessons learned about making electronic flight information acceptable to controllers. Iteration of the field evaluation methods are discussed for practitioner benefit.

A user-friendly system that yields operational benefit results from data-driven prototype evaluations and benefits analyses that iteratively feed back into the prototype design and development. In this study, initial requirements development and field evaluations were conducted using a shadow operations technique at the center tower backup Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport air traffic control tower (ATCT). Results are discussed in reference to the design process of the Tower Flight Data Manager (TFDM) prototype. Nonintrusive measures for quantitatively validating human-systems design issues were identified for this study, including visual gaze analysis and verbal command sequence analysis. Behavioral validation of design issues simplifies the process to prioritize beneficial design changes. The iterative process used resulted in an interim TFDM prototype that was rated by active air traffic controllers as both beneficial and usable in an operational ATCT environment.

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