Helping pilots find their way to your destination.
The commercial aviation industry is in the midst of a technological transition from standard analog controls to the “glass cockpit.” Jeppesen, the primary provider of navigational charts for airlines, needed to their customers and their pilots to feel confident and calm through the transition.
Jeppesen FlightDeck Electronic Flight Bag UI
Role: Visual Design, Specifications
Working with: Swim Interaction Design
To help pilots keep their bearings, I joined forces with the Swim UX team to design this EFB interface for Jeppesen. The dedicated device allows pilots to quickly access their navigational charts and runway “moving map” while maintaining situational awareness. As the client said, “With an aircraft travelling at 500 mph you want as little head-down time as possible and you want a product that’s as efficient as possible.”
To help the pilots feel in control and at ease, the touchscreen UI has a tactile quality that feels of a piece with the flight deck.
It has an aviation product feel, a certain appropriateness for the flight deck.”
— Alan K., Southwest Airlines pilot
And it glows in the dark!
One important design consideration was the nature of lighting in the flight deck. Overall, the environment is pretty dark. This makes anything illuminated stand out distinctly from the surroundings. The opportunity this effect created allowed us to modulate tonality with purpose to direct the users eyes though the experience in a considered manner.
In the end, in addition to happy clients and confident pilots, our efforts lead to a patent being issued for some of the features of the UI.
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