Touch Interactive Display Systems: Human Factors Considerations, System Design and Performance Guidelines

Touch screens were introduced in the early 1990s in military cockpits to perform simple functions and more recently in commercial avionics both for installed and non-installed devices such as Portable Electronic Devices hosting Electronic Flight Bag applications. Touch screens are widely used in consumer electronics (e.g., tablets and cell phones) leading to novel human machine interfaces and interactions. However, the guidelines and recommendations for touch screens from the consumer industry are not sufficient to cover their implementation in cockpits/flight decks and hence this ARP is needed to ensure that the continued implementation of touch interactive display capabilities to be used by pilots will be acceptable. Guidance material on the integration and use of touch interactions for cockpit display systems is essential to address the new benefits and issues raised by introducing the touch modality into the cockpit. Certification Review Items have been issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency during the introduction of touch screens in commercial or helicopter cockpits. While the Federal Aviation Administration has included high level guidance for the introduction of touch screens into the electronic displays in AC 20-175 “Controls for Flight Deck Systems”, specific recommendations on how to meet that guidance are missing. More specific guidance and recommendations will be useful to the industry to ensure that touch screens developed for use by pilots will consistently and effectively meet the regulatory rules and high level guidance. Human machine interaction factors such as single pilot versus dual pilot interaction, touch feedback, erroneous action and crew workload are addressed in this document.