Fault management during dynamic spacecraft flight: effects of cockpit display format and workload

A proposed redesign of the shuttle cockpit display formats improves the correspondence between system summary displays and crew members´ mental models of systems architecture and functional mode. We report the results of a part task simulation that assessed the impact of the redesigned displays on participants´ ability to perform various steps in the process of diagnosing and recovering from systems malfunctions. Participants were airline pilots who received a modest amount of training on the tasks required of shuttle crews during nominal and off nominal ascents. With respect to fault management performance, both errors of omission and commission were reduced with the redesigned displays. Fault management errors were further categorized within a cognitive stage information processing framework. Error rates increased steadily from early to late stages of processing, but more so for the current displays than for the redesigned displays. We conclude that classifying and analyzing errors made by participants with relatively low levels of training provides a useful methodology for assessing and evaluating human centered design modifications to spacecraft displays.