Point of Maintenance Usability Study Final Report (Spiral 1 Usability Test, Spiral 3 Synthetic Usability Test, and Spiral 3 Field Usability Test)

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. As part of the P-O-Mx efforts, the Air Force Research Laboratory, Logistics Readiness Branch (AFRL/HESR) funded a series of Human Factors usability tests for the purpose of evaluating the maintenance hardware devices to be used at the Point of Maintenance. Three usability tests were conducted: Spiral 1 Usability Test, Spiral 3 Synthetic Usability Test, and Spiral 3 Field Usability Test. The purpose of the Spiral 1 testing was to evaluate various hardware platforms for their potential usability on the flightline. The Spiral 1 Usability Test compared 5 computing systems for their usability for opening work orders from the aircraft location. The overall purpose of the Spiral 3 testing (both the synthetic and field tests) was to evaluate the use of potential P-O-Mx target platforms for presenting technical data on the flightline. The Spiral 3 Synthetic Usability Test compared 3 computing systems, evaluating their usability for viewing technical manuals and job guides on the flightline. All testing was conducted at the 16th SOW, Hurlburt Field AFB, FL. This final report documents test results and acknowledges technician's preference for small, lightweight devices to perform flightline tasks. In addition, features such as touch screen, voice recognition, and screen quality are major considerations for future selection of hardware platforms to be used at the Point of Maintenance.