Ecological Interface Design in Aviation Domains: Work Domain Analysis of Automated Collision Detection and Avoidance

This paper describes Work Domain Analysis (WDA) applied to the domain of automated midair collision detection and avoidance as a first step in the design of improved ecological interfaces for automated traffic alerting displays. Three abstraction hierarchies (AH) modelling the aircraft, collision environment, and a traffic alerting system are presented, and the challenges of adapting the AH to enhanced displays will be examined. It will be shown that WDA is a feasible framework for establishing information requirements of flight and automated collision dynamics. Ecological Interface Design (EID) can then be applied to develop displays that invoke a greater trust in the automation.