The Navigator's Yeoman

Potential improvements are suggested in human interaction with machines, maps and charts. These improvements are particularly motivated by the growing use of marine electronic position-fixing aids. Automatic plotting tables and moving light spots have provided part of the solution in larger ships, and there has been considerable investment in the development of systems based on electronic charts. For various reasons, including the lack of available databases and of an updating and distribution infrastructure for electronic charts, the authors feel that widespread reliance upon such systems as primary or exclusive plotting aids is many years away. They describe a navigation plotting system that they developed and that uses existing conventional charts. Known as Yeoman, its purpose is to provide a simple and effective man-chart interface with few drawbacks.