Evidence-Based, User-Centered Design Process for Improvement of the Utility of the Surface Electronic Warfare Display Suit

In Naval, surface electronic warfare (EW), visual displays form critical bridges between warfighters and the complex operational radio-frequency (RF) spectrum they must monitor and interpret. Surface electronic warfare operators and supervisors must monitor and interact with multiple, stove-piped display systems in order to perform their work. Further, the visual displays they employ are not designed to account for critical perceptual and cognitive requirements of their human end users. The combined result of an increasingly complex operational RF spectrum, and too many poorly design visual displays is that the workload of end users is excessive and unsustainable, with significant potential for error. The Navy lacks display design processes to address these shortcomings. In this STTR project, Pacific Science and Engineering (PSE), a leader in human factors and evidence-based design of display systems, is pairing with engineers at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to address these challenges. PSE will lead an effort to develop artefacts and processes to provide the Navy with a way to systematically update its surface EW display suite so that the displays are more usable and useful.