Why the FMC/MCDU is hard to train and difficult to use

Sherry, Lance; Diez, Melanie; Boehm‐Davis, Deborah A.

doi:10.1109/dasc.2003.1245819

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The idea behind this is that the pilots can study and/or discover the remaining procedures on their own. Experience from training itself shows, however, that it is very hard for pilots to learn the required procedures, let alone discover any new procedures (Sherry, Polson, Fennell, & Feary, 2002). Memorizing the procedures during the classroom phase of training turns out to be so hard that it is virtually useless for the second phase of training in the simulator.…”

Section: The Task Domain: Flight Management Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The acquisition of robust and flexible cognitive skills.

Taatgen¹,

Huss²,

Dickison³

et al. 2008

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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The authors introduce a model of skill acquisition that incorporates elements of both traditional models and models based on embedded cognition by striking a balance between top-down and bottom-up control. A knowledge representation is used in which pre- and postconditions are attached to actions. This model captures improved performance due to learning not only in terms of shorter solution times and lower error rates during the task but also in an increased flexibility to solve similar problems and robustness against unexpected events. In 3 experiments using a complex aviation task, the authors contrasted instructions that explicitly stated pre- and postconditions with conventional instructions that did not. The instructions with pre- and postconditions led to better and more robust performance than other instructions, especially on problems that required transfer. The parameters of the model were estimated to obtain a quantitative fit of the results of Experiment 1, which was then successfully used to predict the results of Experiments 2 and 3.

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Section: The Task Domain: Flight Management Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The acquisition of robust and flexible cognitive skills.

Taatgen¹,

Huss²,

Dickison³

et al. 2008

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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“…A number of subsequent research studies concluded that the current human-computer interface to the flight management system is particularly difficult to use and to learn. Reasons include: the awkward keyboard layout (Abbott, 1997), the large number of "pages" and features, the complexity of navigating to find or enter the function or information required and most importantly, the lack of affordances such as labels which result in an over reliance on memorized actions (Sherry et al, 2003). Many of these design shortcomings can be partially explained by FMS interaction with the autopilot system that is not immediately obvious, and the distribution of interface elements distributed across the Mode Control Panel (MCP), the FMS Control Display Unit (CDU/MCDU) and the Primary Flight Display (PFD) (Boorman and Mumaw, 2004) .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of Training Efficiency and Usability for a Graphical Flight Planning (GFP) System and a Conventional Multifunction Control Display Unit (MCDU)

Feigh

Rogers

Burke

2008

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual

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A comparative study of a GFP input method and an MCDU for FMS-based flight planning was conducted to assess the impact of the input method on training and usability. Additionally, the effect of English language proficiency was also assessed. The GFP and MCDU systems were compared using 16 ab initio pilots with two levels of English proficiency. No significant differences were found for the majority of objective training measures analyzed, but there was a marginally significant advantage for the GFP system in terms of number of clearances successfully input within a specified time limit. Other significant differences in objective measures showed some advantages for GFP and some advantages for MCDU. The GFP had significantly better performance and significantly lower subjective rating of overall workload, ratings of effort and frustration. Overall the pilots perceived the GFP interface to be more intuitive, easier to use and faster to learn than the conventional FMS. Only minor differences were associated with English proficiency.

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