G1000
I have a lot of friends who are user-interface-savvy, some of whom even have advanced degrees in perhaps-relevant areas of study.
So maybe some of them could please start applying for jobs at Garmin (and probably all of the other glass-panel avionics manufacturers beside).
I’ve never used a G1000 in flight, but I’ve read plenty about them, and every single experience goes something like this. Which, given the infuriating interface of the simpler Garmin aircraft GPS units to which I’m accustomed, is no surprise.
Donald Norman is spinning in his grave and he’s not even dead yet.
These are not the idle complaints of nitpicky rich people who need day jobs. It’s not like having a handle on a “push” door. This is turning a plane full of people into a fine pink mist because a pilot gets confused about where the mountaintop is on a low-visibility approach.
I bet that before the decade is out, we’ll have at least a dozen NTSB reports that include terrible glass-cockpit user interfaces in the probable cause.
Merlin83b said,
December 18, 2007 @ 06:52
A fellow pilot and I were talking about this a week or so ago. That checklist thing is just poor design, but the fundamental problem with the G1000 interface is that it’s not modeless (modeful?). The Avidyne interface, as seen in the Cirrus aircraft in particular is a lot better in this respect, even if its functionality isn’t quite on par with the G1000.
I fully agree with you that this is a safety matter and Garmin in particular, with their market leading position, should be taking it upon themselves to get it right.
phik said,
December 18, 2007 @ 07:13
From what relatively little I know of the G1000, I’m inclined to agree. There’s no way you should need forty-five buttons on that unit. Some statefullness may help a lot.
The one thing I can say from experience is that, if the G1000 is anything like its older, less-powerful siblings, which of those 45 buttons you need to press to achieve an action may also differ from screen to screen. You might select a flight plan with ENTER on one screen, but select a waypoint within that flight plan using DIRECT.
And god forbid you hit the wrong one. It makes me angry just thinking about it.
Johnathan Nightingale said,
December 18, 2007 @ 13:21
You spend a lot more time in cockpits than I, and I can only presume that you spend more time reading NTSB reports too - I can state categorically that you don’t spend *less* - so I may be crazy or out of line here. In my opinion though, if Donald Norman and Charles Perrow have taught us nothing else, I think they have taught us this: there won’t be a dozen reports citing Garmin, there will just be a dozen more dead pilots(+PAX) due to “pilot error.”
You’re absolutely right, that this kind of crap (and I haven’t seen the G1000 itself, though I’ve had the joy of Garmin’s lesser, handhelds…) is not just annoyance, it’s negligence causing bodily harm.