Making the cockpit a human friendly environment: a customer´s perspective

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. In the Aviation Industry, it means we kill people. Those who were the first to put information in the cockpit through the use of analog gauges had no standards to guide them. The result: pilots were more apt to get disorientated in bad weather conditions. It was not until an Industry Standard was developed, in this case putting flight instruments in a consistent placement, that pilots could fly safely in instrument conditions in almost any aircraft. We need to learn from these lessons. If we do not, the Airline Industry may be pushed even faster toward a fate of one major aircraft hull loss per week. Careful design and implementation of Electronic Information Displays could also be the key to elimination of such a ghastly statistic. By striving for human factors excellence, and more importantly, system user input before designs are created, the electronics and software industry could help the Federal Aviation Administration get closer to its goal of zero accidents