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Airbus Commercial Aircraft

Unified Planning« assessment»

Need

Human Design Group is working with Airbus to evaluate the «Unified Planning» project management solution for the A350 on the basis of ergonomic criteria.

As part of the A350 project, Airbus is implementing a collaborative planning tool, based on the OPX2 application, designed to optimise the project’s costs and implementation times. The initial phases of roll-out and user testing have highlighted usability issues that are affecting the software’s usability and acting as a barrier to users’ adoption of the tool.

Airbus sought the support of Human Design Group to improve the application’s user-friendliness by carrying out an interface analysis based on the ergonomic criteria applicable to the design of human-machine interfaces.

Intervention

Human Design Group has implemented a usability approach aimed at improving the ease of use, acceptability and learnability of the Unified Planning application by offering HCI solutions that are compatible with the project’s tight schedule:

  • Observation of user behaviour and interviews to understand how features are used and to gather feedback on the current interface;
  • Cross-disciplinary ergonomic assessment of the HMI to objectively identify usability issues with regard to ergonomic criteria and HMI standards;
  • Comparative analysis and benchmarking of similar HMIs;
  • HMI specifications for the solutions in the form of storyboards (zoning and detailed mock-ups);
  • Working meetings with Airbus users, the designers (Cylad Consulting) and the development team (Planisware) to jointly refine and validate the proposed solutions.

Results

  • Detailed report on the expert assessment by ergonomic criteria structuring classes that cause issues which detract from the application’s ease of use and user-friendliness;
  • A document setting out ergonomic recommendations and specifications for HMI solutions that can be directly implemented by the development team;
  • Establishment of a participatory approach involving users to facilitate change management, learning and the adoption of the new A350 project planning management solution.
CustomerAirbus
SectorAerospace
ProjectA350 project management application
Websitehttps://www.airbus.com