Symbology evaluation for strategic weather information on the flight deck

New cockpit systems such as an electronic flight bag (EFB) are enablers to provide flight crews with real-time strategic weather information. Strategic weather information will enhance pilot situational awareness along the route to optimize flight-tracks and reduce flight time. In addition, strategic weather information reduces the flight crewpsilas workload and consequently human errors. This paper describes a study concerning the depiction of strategic real-time weather data on electronic displays. The first step of this study was to analyze the current weather information and its source as provided to pilots. Next, several human factors aspects and their relative impact to the development of a weather display were analyzed and evaluated. This included weather schemas, color coding, and symbol design. The resultant design study identifies the issues inherent in the overlay of multiple weather phenomena for a single composite display of the information. Based on the results of this design study, five weather display concepts, ranging from a static application to weather overlays on an electronic chart display (ECD), were identified. The final stage of this study conducted an evaluation of these display concepts with both visual flight rules (VFR) and instrument flight rules (IFR) operations taken into account. Pilot participation was used to rank the different concepts in terms of usability, understandability, functionality and workload and evaluate aspects of color-coding and symbology.