UX and Air France 447

I read with a chill the transcript of the pilots conversation at the end of the ill fated Air France 447.

This is ultimately a failure in UX.

The state of UX design has advanced so much, perhaps we need more UX testing so that even pilots who are unfamiliar with a plane could figure out what to do. More probably has been done in UX to help customers checkout their web shopping carts than plane designers helping pilots get a plane out of a stall. To do this effectively, one has to do testing on pilots who are unfamiliar with how the plane works.

Broken Rule #1

Alternate law and normal law introduces two modes. This breaks one of the rules of user experience, especially if it is infrequently encountered. Combined with turning autopilot off on its own, it is bound to cause even more confusion. The plane could have put an alert asking the pilot to go on autopilot, otherwise, it will continue by making educated guesses. (A pilot is no better judge of airspeed than the computer)

Broken rule #2

Another rule of UX broken is “tell” instead of “announce”. The voice should have said “Stall. Dive now” or “Stall. Why are you pulling the stick back?”.

Broken rule #3

Flights computers not “credible” or “trustworthy” during emergencies.

One of the problems we have today is that people still do not trust computers, despite a human in a cockpit in a dark surrounding having not much better sensory input than a flight computer. The flight computer can reinforce its credibility by demonstrating it has predictive capability. For instance, it can say, “decrease your angle of attack or you will stall in 5 seconds”, then “4″, “3″ “2″ “1″, “stalling”. The voice should demonstrate increased tension and panic as counting down.