Evaluation of cockpit design by using quantitative and qualitative tools

Cockpit displays and the controls are sophisticated human machine interface applications. Display systems, present at cockpits are complex environments causing excessive mental workload and the consequences of errors can be catastrophic. In order to prevent any human error a user-friendly display panel must be designed. In this study quantitative and qualitative approaches are used to evaluate the positions of analogue indicators at front display panel from human factors point of view. Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) algorithms are employed as quantitative tools. In order to test whether or not the Decision Maker´s (DM) preferences are consistent with a quasi-concave, a quasi-convex and a linear utility function, a combined algorithm is applied. Due to the form of utility function; an algorithm finding the most preferred alternative of DM is used. The aim of this approach is to find an order to locate each indicator to suitable classes. Card Sorting methodology is used as the qualitative research tool for the same problem. Results of these two approaches are compared.