FAA Office of Aerospace Medicine
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
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AVIATION MEDICINE REPORTS

Report No: DOT/FAA/AM-00/8

Title and Subtitle: Comparing Text and Graphics in Navigation Display Design

Report Date: February 2000

Authors: Williams, K.W.

Abstract: Thirty-six pilots were tested in a flight simulator on their ability to decide which of two airports was farther from a storm front, based on the manner in which information was presented on a navigational display. The results support the superiority of graphical over textual information display of nearest airport information. Pilots were significantly faster using the map display than using either the text-only display or the enhanced-text display. In addition, in contrast to an earlier study (Williams, 1999), pilots performed better using a north-up map than when using a track-up map. Discussion of the results focuses on recommendations for moving-map displays and the display requirements for support of the nearest-airport function within a navigational display.

Key Words: Aircraft Navigation, Human-Computer Interface, Aircraft Displays, Pilot Performance

No. of Pages: 18