Section 9. Color Displays-Terminal
3-9-1. COLOR USE
ON ATC DISPLAYS
Color use on
terminal systems was developed jointly with the Terminal Safety and
Operations Support Office and the Terminal Automation Human Factors Team.
This section provides guidelines on the use of color on ATC displays
through a national standard for terminal air traffic displays. These
guidelines are intended to standardize the use of colors across the
terminal systems. Any use outside these guidelines must be developed
jointly with the Terminal Safety and Operations Support Office, the
appropriate Service Area Director, and the Terminal Automation Human
Factors Team. All use of color on ATC displays must fall within these
guidelines, except for MEARTS:
a. Whenever
color capabilities exist, the following National Color Standard for
Terminal Systems must be installed:
1. Background
must be black.
2. Point out
identifier blinking or steady must be yellow.
3. Compass
Rose, range rings, maps A and B must be dim gray.
4. Coordination
rundown list as follows:
(a) Unsent
must be green.
(b) Unacknowledged
must be blinking green.
(c) Acknowledged
must be steady green.
5. Geographic
restriction border, fill, and text must be yellow.
6. Data
blocks owned must be white.
7. Limited
or partial data blocks unowned must be green.
8. Search
target symbol must be blue.
9. Beacon
target extent must be green.
10. History
trails must be blue.
11. Predicted
track line must be white.
12. Minimum
separation line must be white.
b. Whenever
color is used to identify critical information it must be used with
another method of notification such as blinking.
c. Cultural
color conventions which cannot be violated include red for danger and
yellow for warning.
d. The color
pure blue should not be used for text, small symbols, other fine details,
or as a background color.
e. Ensure
all colors that are used including text and symbols are presented in
sufficient contrast.
f. Ensure no
more than two colors are assigned to a single data block.
g. Use of
color in general should be kept to a minimum. When color is used to denote
a specific meaning, e.g., yellow means caution, the number of colors used
on a single display must be no more than six and should be constrained to
the primary colors of red, yellow, green, blue, orange, and cyan. The
optimum number of colors used for coding should be limited to four.
h. The
specific colors that are selected for a display must take into account the
ambient environment and the capabilities of the specific monitor.
i. Any
implementation of color is to be tested in the context and environment to
which it was designed.
j. Color use
needs to be consistent across all of the displays that a single controller
will use.
k. Facility
air traffic managers must make all requests for any color changes to color
baseline through the Director, Terminal Safety and Operations Support.
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