Replay Application for Flight Data Recorders All Case Studies
Making available the exact data that crash investigators need
The Challenge
When an aircraft crashes, investigators turn to the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, also known as black boxes, to establish the probable cause. Today’s black boxes record as many as 700 critical parameters such as acceleration, altitude, temperatures and pressures, engine performance, and internal and external communications. Manufacturers of black boxes provide the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) with the readout systems and software needed to do an analysis. Recognizing that its software required users to wade through an overwhelming amount of data to get to specifics, a leading black box manufacturer hired Electronic Ink to redesign it.
The Electronic Ink Solution
Although causes of crashes always are anxiously awaited, investigations are known to be lengthy. The previous black box interface made users work very hard -- clicking from screen to screen to arrive at data, and digging through data they didn’t want just to get to what they needed. This made the process even longer. With the goal of reducing the time it takes to review critical data, Electronic Ink overhauled the interface to give users clear signals and direct access to the exact data streams they wanted, eliminating the hoops they had to jump through previously. Changes were myriad but included centralizing all data streams on one screen, and establishing visual prominence to streams the user determined to be most relevant. Drag-and-drop functionality was introduced, for ease-of-use, and icons and buttons replaced antiquated pull-down menus for control of playback performance.
Net Result and Impact
The new state-of-the-art, streamlined interface served up the data investigators needed, reduced their search times and greatly increased operator accuracy.
