Applying Advanced Human Engineering Methods to Mission Planning for Multi-Manned or Unmanned Air Vehicles

The project goal is developing a modern, useable, and intuitive user interface (UI) for the Navys Joint Mission Planning System (JMPS) weapons strike planning user community. Monterey Technologies, Inc. (MTI) will use human factors engineering (HFE) best practices and the Agile development process to conduct a front-end analysis of the JMPS strike weapons planning process following MTIs user-centered design (UCD) approach. Steps include conducting a JMPS weapons planning process task analysis, conducting a heuristic evaluation of the JMPS user interface, and documenting the strike planner workload/workflow processes. Following this UCD process, MTI will use the analysis results to develop low fidelity UI concepts using a wire frame model approach, followed by higher fidelity story boards, and conduct walkthroughs of these wire frame models with Navy JMPS strike planner Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to refine the UIs to ensure they contain the required functionality, are intuitive and easy to manipulate, and that they produce the needed output while significantly reducing planning time. MTI HFEs will leverage modern UI concepts such as found in current smart phones and tablet technology to refine the new JMPS UI concept, and develop a software plan for prototype development in the Phase 2 project.