15 ms·

On the typography of flight deck documentation – NASA (1992)

211 points by Audiophilip 10y ago

ldjb 10y ago
Note that this is from 1992. Even so, it's definitely fascinating to see the amount of attention to detail put into the design of the documentation.
hackuser 10y ago
This should have (1992) added to the title. Still interesting. What tipped me off was this observation: There are over 2300 typefaces available today.
Theodores 10y ago
Strange that I have worked with so many designers over so many years that ignore basic research like this. In ecommerce it is a constant battle against block caps for every title, every product name and every banner. It is also a constant battle to get copy in a legible font with sensible line heights. Recently I switched some fonts from the designer fonts to native font stacks with sensible line heights and the conversion rate improved considerably, although I was not able to measure this as there were external factors, e.g. sales promotions, that make this not so clear cut. The consensus is that the faster, easier to read site is winning sales, nobody cares with such emotion about the exact font now it is totally different on all devices, things have gone from being exactly specified to whatever it happens to be on the native font stack, there is almost no way of knowing if that really is 'San Francisco' or not. What I have not explained to my critical colleagues is how the 'SF' font changes from 'text' spacing and font to 'display' spacing and font above 19pt. So the font automagically adjusts itself for optimal legibility and clarity. I think the NASA typography guys would have approved of this approach when designing for displays - use the best fonts on the device. I also think Tim Berners Lee would approve, the original web was supposed to be with the device doing the look and feel.
- gmac 10y ago
  it is a constant battle against block caps for every title, every product name and every banner I know how this feels. Designing for people with big goals and limited design intuition generally means battling the implicit, repeated guidance that EVERYTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVERYTHING ELSE.
- kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
  Frequently the decision makers are older people with presbyopia who are convinced that ALLCAPS is best when the better solution would be a larger font.
rsync 10y ago
Related: the Typesets in the Future blog.[1] [1] https://typesetinthefuture.com/ https://typesetinthefuture.com/
- snowcrshd 10y ago
  That blog looks great! Thank you for sharing :-)
jkaljundi 10y ago
There is also this one: Legible, are you sure? An experimentation-based typographical design in Safety-critical context http://lii-enac.fr/articles/vinot-chi-2012.pdf http://lii-enac.fr/articles/vinot-chi-2012.pdf Wired had an article a few years ago: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/aircraft-typography http://www.wired.co.uk/article/aircraft-typography
- jonshariat 10y ago
  I've been writing a book on ways design can play a critical role in our lives. This reminds me of one of the stories in the book: A pilot cashes a plane because he didn't realize which decent mode he was in and 3.3 and 33 look awfully similar in the display. These things can be the difference between life and death. For those interested in more: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920038887.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920038887.do
  - techdragon 10y ago
    It's somewhat frustrating how long O'Reilly books can spend in the early release phase. I've been waiting for this one for a year now. It looks like an excellent read on the topic of bad design. As one of the authors, I don't suppose you can shed some light on when it might be "finished"?
  - yitchelle 10y ago
    In schematic design, it is a common practice to use a letter in the place of the decimal point. For example, a resistor with value 2700 ohms is written as 2K7 ohms, or a capacitor wiht a value of 2.2 uF is written as 2u2F.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    It's more than that. Medicines should be in bottles where the category is indicted by the bottle shape and color, and the stronger the color the more concentrated/dangerous the medicine is. This would reduce a lot of hospital accidental deaths. Bottle shapes indicating content have a history going back to wine bottles.
techdragon 10y ago
There are a few other reports on the topic in the NASA archives. Such as this one which references the report linked to by this post. Designing Flight Deck Procedures - 2005 - https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110016464&hterms=Typography&qs=N%3D0%26Ntk%3DAll%26Ntt%3DTypography%26Ntx%3Dmode%2520matchallpartial https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110016464&hterms=Typogr...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sddfd 10y ago
I wonder why they don't insert a small vertical space before each line with a bullet point in front. For me, this makes it much easier to identify the groups of lines that belong together.
tragomaskhalos 10y ago
For the new air traffic control centre in Swanwick here in the UK, I worked with a team doing UI design for the big 20x20 displays that the controllers (ATCOs) would use. Because these were effectively radar screen replacements, the ATCOs insisted that the screens should be black, with all the aircraft tracks, track blocks and other such on the screen in bright colours, as this is what they were used to. The UI experts said no, research indicates that it is better (more restful on the eyes etc) to use a light background, with the tracks in dark colours, and pastels for the track blocks. It was interesting to see how much research went into all this, much more that simple user preference. The upshot however was that the ATCOs won, and the radar-style colour scheme was what was delivered.
- posterboy 10y ago
  Cue discussion about terminals and all-nighters preferring dimmed colors.
  - Neliquat 10y ago
    Guilty of this. Black background and light grey, deep blue highlights, deep red syntax. Staring at white boxes too long makes my eyes hurt.
  - unexistance 10y ago
    my firefox & terminal (& wallpapers) are all dark I really cannot bare to read anymore in sites with bright background actual dead-trees are a different beast :D
- rwmj 10y ago
  I have to ask why - if all that research was done, they settled instead on the familiar preference?
  - mafribe 10y ago
    Are you not assuming that research is infallible and settles such a controversial matter once and for all?
FabHK 10y ago
As one (somewhat less serious) anecdote, remember the Best Movie mishap at the recent Academy Awards? Better typography could almost certainly have prevented that: https://medium.freecodecamp.com/why-typography-matters-especially-at-the-oscars-f7b00e202f22 https://medium.freecodecamp.com/why-typography-matters-espec...
metaphor 10y ago
For what it's worth, the US military often references MIL-STD-1472 [1] to frame general design requirements for pretty much anything that involves direct human interaction. [1] http://quicksearch.dla.mil/qsDocDetails.aspx?ident_number=36903 http://quicksearch.dla.mil/qsDocDetails.aspx?ident_number=36...
- mathewsanders 10y ago
  I just had a quick scan through it but fascinating the depth and breadth of criteria. There's a table with about ~60 different room environments from lounge, galley, to actual workstations and the level that the room should be illuminated, and for workstation rooms, the reflectance of different materials in the room. Great find! ps I'm probably the only person here using safari, but the page to load the PDF didn't load for me so here's link to latest revision: http://quicksearch.dla.mil/Transient/72FC2386C1C2425E8298D6C43BF80CE2.pdf http://quicksearch.dla.mil/Transient/72FC2386C1C2425E8298D6C... (2012).
  - alphapapa 10y ago
    That URL says "Transient" for a reason. ;)
- keehun 10y ago
  This is really cool! Just glanced through it, and saw this: 5.4.2 Orientation. Labels and information thereon (i.e., words and symbols) shall be oriented horizontally to read from left to right. Vertical orientation, reading from top to bottom, may be used only when labels are not critical for personnel safety or performance and where space is limited. Where vertical orientation is necessary, the characters shall be readable in an upright orientation as depicted on figure 31. Sideways text and text read from bottom to top are unacceptable. Such a definition seems like common sense, and then I realized there is probably someone out there in the vast military industry who probably doesn't care enough and may actually place a label sideways from bottom to top... It is also amazing how much longer it takes me to read a label when letters are arranged vertically but not sideways. Sideways and vertical is quicker for me.
hahajk 10y ago
The document is a bit equivocal on the use on serif vs sans-serif fonts but eventually states that sans-serifs are usually more legible. Interestingly, US pocket checklists (for use in flight) use a serif font for the routine checklists and sans-serif for the emergency procedures. I wonder if there was some research that supports that decision. ([1] is an F-14 checklist I found on the internet but other platforms' checklists have identical formatting.) [1] http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/usa/grumman/f-14tomcat/navair-01-f14aap-1b-natops-pocket-checklist-f-14b-aircraft.html http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/usa/grumman/f-...

211 points by Audiophilip 10y ago

ldjb 10y ago

Note that this is from 1992. Even so, it's definitely fascinating to see the amount of attention to detail put into the design of the documentation.

hackuser 10y ago

This should have (1992) added to the title. Still interesting. What tipped me off was this observation: There are over 2300 typefaces available today.

Theodores 10y ago

Strange that I have worked with so many designers over so many years that ignore basic research like this. In ecommerce it is a constant battle against block caps for every title, every product name and every banner. It is also a constant battle to get copy in a legible font with sensible line heights. Recently I switched some fonts from the designer fonts to native font stacks with sensible line heights and the conversion rate improved considerably, although I was not able to measure this as there were external factors, e.g. sales promotions, that make this not so clear cut. The consensus is that the faster, easier to read site is winning sales, nobody cares with such emotion about the exact font now it is totally different on all devices, things have gone from being exactly specified to whatever it happens to be on the native font stack, there is almost no way of knowing if that really is 'San Francisco' or not. What I have not explained to my critical colleagues is how the 'SF' font changes from 'text' spacing and font to 'display' spacing and font above 19pt. So the font automagically adjusts itself for optimal legibility and clarity. I think the NASA typography guys would have approved of this approach when designing for displays - use the best fonts on the device. I also think Tim Berners Lee would approve, the original web was supposed to be with the device doing the look and feel.

gmac 10y ago
it is a constant battle against block caps for every title, every product name and every banner I know how this feels. Designing for people with big goals and limited design intuition generally means battling the implicit, repeated guidance that EVERYTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVERYTHING ELSE.
kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
Frequently the decision makers are older people with presbyopia who are convinced that ALLCAPS is best when the better solution would be a larger font.

rsync 10y ago

Related: the Typesets in the Future blog.[1] [1] https://typesetinthefuture.com/ https://typesetinthefuture.com/

snowcrshd 10y ago
That blog looks great! Thank you for sharing :-)

jkaljundi 10y ago

There is also this one: Legible, are you sure? An experimentation-based typographical design in Safety-critical context http://lii-enac.fr/articles/vinot-chi-2012.pdf http://lii-enac.fr/articles/vinot-chi-2012.pdf Wired had an article a few years ago: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/aircraft-typography http://www.wired.co.uk/article/aircraft-typography

jonshariat 10y ago
I've been writing a book on ways design can play a critical role in our lives. This reminds me of one of the stories in the book: A pilot cashes a plane because he didn't realize which decent mode he was in and 3.3 and 33 look awfully similar in the display. These things can be the difference between life and death. For those interested in more: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920038887.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920038887.do
- techdragon 10y ago
  It's somewhat frustrating how long O'Reilly books can spend in the early release phase. I've been waiting for this one for a year now. It looks like an excellent read on the topic of bad design. As one of the authors, I don't suppose you can shed some light on when it might be "finished"?
- yitchelle 10y ago
  In schematic design, it is a common practice to use a letter in the place of the decimal point. For example, a resistor with value 2700 ohms is written as 2K7 ohms, or a capacitor wiht a value of 2.2 uF is written as 2u2F.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  It's more than that. Medicines should be in bottles where the category is indicted by the bottle shape and color, and the stronger the color the more concentrated/dangerous the medicine is. This would reduce a lot of hospital accidental deaths. Bottle shapes indicating content have a history going back to wine bottles.

techdragon 10y ago

There are a few other reports on the topic in the NASA archives. Such as this one which references the report linked to by this post. Designing Flight Deck Procedures - 2005 - https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110016464&hterms=Typography&qs=N%3D0%26Ntk%3DAll%26Ntt%3DTypography%26Ntx%3Dmode%2520matchallpartial https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110016464&hterms=Typogr...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

sddfd 10y ago

I wonder why they don't insert a small vertical space before each line with a bullet point in front. For me, this makes it much easier to identify the groups of lines that belong together.

tragomaskhalos 10y ago

For the new air traffic control centre in Swanwick here in the UK, I worked with a team doing UI design for the big 20x20 displays that the controllers (ATCOs) would use. Because these were effectively radar screen replacements, the ATCOs insisted that the screens should be black, with all the aircraft tracks, track blocks and other such on the screen in bright colours, as this is what they were used to. The UI experts said no, research indicates that it is better (more restful on the eyes etc) to use a light background, with the tracks in dark colours, and pastels for the track blocks. It was interesting to see how much research went into all this, much more that simple user preference. The upshot however was that the ATCOs won, and the radar-style colour scheme was what was delivered.

posterboy 10y ago
Cue discussion about terminals and all-nighters preferring dimmed colors.
- Neliquat 10y ago
  Guilty of this. Black background and light grey, deep blue highlights, deep red syntax. Staring at white boxes too long makes my eyes hurt.
- unexistance 10y ago
  my firefox & terminal (& wallpapers) are all dark I really cannot bare to read anymore in sites with bright background actual dead-trees are a different beast :D
rwmj 10y ago
I have to ask why - if all that research was done, they settled instead on the familiar preference?
- mafribe 10y ago
  Are you not assuming that research is infallible and settles such a controversial matter once and for all?

FabHK 10y ago

As one (somewhat less serious) anecdote, remember the Best Movie mishap at the recent Academy Awards? Better typography could almost certainly have prevented that: https://medium.freecodecamp.com/why-typography-matters-especially-at-the-oscars-f7b00e202f22 https://medium.freecodecamp.com/why-typography-matters-espec...

metaphor 10y ago

For what it's worth, the US military often references MIL-STD-1472 [1] to frame general design requirements for pretty much anything that involves direct human interaction. [1] http://quicksearch.dla.mil/qsDocDetails.aspx?ident_number=36903 http://quicksearch.dla.mil/qsDocDetails.aspx?ident_number=36...

mathewsanders 10y ago
I just had a quick scan through it but fascinating the depth and breadth of criteria. There's a table with about ~60 different room environments from lounge, galley, to actual workstations and the level that the room should be illuminated, and for workstation rooms, the reflectance of different materials in the room. Great find! ps I'm probably the only person here using safari, but the page to load the PDF didn't load for me so here's link to latest revision: http://quicksearch.dla.mil/Transient/72FC2386C1C2425E8298D6C43BF80CE2.pdf http://quicksearch.dla.mil/Transient/72FC2386C1C2425E8298D6C... (2012).
- alphapapa 10y ago
  That URL says "Transient" for a reason. ;)
keehun 10y ago
This is really cool! Just glanced through it, and saw this: 5.4.2 Orientation. Labels and information thereon (i.e., words and symbols) shall be oriented horizontally to read from left to right. Vertical orientation, reading from top to bottom, may be used only when labels are not critical for personnel safety or performance and where space is limited. Where vertical orientation is necessary, the characters shall be readable in an upright orientation as depicted on figure 31. Sideways text and text read from bottom to top are unacceptable. Such a definition seems like common sense, and then I realized there is probably someone out there in the vast military industry who probably doesn't care enough and may actually place a label sideways from bottom to top... It is also amazing how much longer it takes me to read a label when letters are arranged vertically but not sideways. Sideways and vertical is quicker for me.

hahajk 10y ago

The document is a bit equivocal on the use on serif vs sans-serif fonts but eventually states that sans-serifs are usually more legible. Interestingly, US pocket checklists (for use in flight) use a serif font for the routine checklists and sans-serif for the emergency procedures. I wonder if there was some research that supports that decision. ([1] is an F-14 checklist I found on the internet but other platforms' checklists have identical formatting.) [1] http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/usa/grumman/f-14tomcat/navair-01-f14aap-1b-natops-pocket-checklist-f-14b-aircraft.html http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/usa/grumman/f-...