Visual Display Principles for C3I System Tasks

Modern C3I systems are best described as semi-automated data management and decision systems over which human operators exercise supervisory control. The effectiveness of such systems is heavily dependent on the design for human-computer interaction (HCI), an important aspect of which is the visual display interface. Current Department of Defense policy mandates consideration of such human factors issues at an early stage in the design process. Comprehensive guidelines are available for display design applications after the general system parameters have been specified. Some recommendations are general, others are specific. This report offers a set of design principles at an intermediate (conceptual) level of abstraction as a complement to existing guidelines. The purpose is to synthesize current knowledge of human cognition into a form that will be applicable to the earliest stages of display design ('cognitive' functions being the most salient and critical of those remaining for the operator in advanced C3I systems). The principles are derived from a review of the literatures on human cognition, HCI, and display design some original research, and liberal interpretation by the authors. They are organized according to operations performed on specific categories of information in possible C3I task configurations.