Point of Maintenance Spiral One Usability Study

The goal of the Point of Maintenance (P-O-Mx) program is to demonstrate timely, accurate, and effective data collection, and logistics operations processing to meet the maintainer's needs at the point of origin. The Spiral One Usability Test consisted of human factors and user-centered evaluations of the P-O-Mx activity. User level evaluations were conducted to determine the maintenance effectiveness of P-O-Mx devices in presenting, modifying, and transmitting maintenance and service data. The evaluations were administered to technicians in the real-world maintenance environment. The purpose of the evaluation was to compare five hardware platforms (Libretto, Itronix, FM-Net, Xybernaut-Wrist, Xybernaut-Head) for opening work orders from the flightline aircraft location. Previous empirical studies conducted by the Air Force Research Laboratory Logistics Readiness Branch (AFRL/HESR) have evaluated both portable maintenance aids and wearable computers for flightline maintenance. Both platforms have been shown to improve maintenance performance over use of paper-based platforms. While these empirical studies have compared wearable computer technologies with portable computers, usability inspection methods (such as usability testing) have not compared these devices. This study demonstrates the usability comparisons of the five hardware platforms using Usability Test Methods.