SBIR-STTR Award

The project goal is developing a modern, useable, and intuitive user interface (UI) for the Navys Joint Mission Planning System (JMPS) weapons strike planning user community. Monterey Technologies, Inc. (MTI) will use human factors engineering (HFE) best practices and the Agile development process to conduct a front-end analysis of the JMPS strike weapons planning process following MTIs user-centered design (UCD) approach. Steps include conducting a JMPS weapons planning process task analysis, conducting a heuristic evaluation of the JMPS user interface, and documenting the strike planner workload/workflow processes. Following this UCD process, MTI will use the analysis results to develop low fidelity UI concepts using a wire frame model approach, followed by higher fidelity story boards, and conduct walkthroughs of these wire frame models with Navy JMPS strike planner Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to refine the UIs to ensure they contain the required functionality, are intuitive and easy to manipulate, and that they produce the needed output while significantly reducing planning time. MTI HFEs will leverage modern UI concepts such as found in current smart phones and tablet technology to refine the new JMPS UI concept, and develop a software plan for prototype development in the Phase 2 project.

Benefit:
The benefit is developing a modern, intuitive UI for the JMPS tactical strike planning process that will save significant planning time, reduce errors, reduce re-planning time, produce higher quality plans and result in making JMPS a tool that is useable. Navy JMPS users are the initial application. Follow-on applications include all Air Force JMPS users, migrating the tool to Army aviation to replace PFPS and Falconview, and eventually migrating the tool to non-DoD agencies such as the Coast Guard, DHS/FEMA and international relief organizations for use in disaster relief planning

Keywords:
Human Factors Engineering, Human Factors Engineering, Human-Computer Interface Design, Workloads/Workflows Analysis, Heuristic Review, Agile development process, task analysis, Cognitive Walkthroughs, HCI story boards

The Visual Planning, Execution and Review-Carrier Air Wing (ViPER-CVW) system has been designed to provide Air Wing strike planners an integrated, 4-D planning capability that will facilitate near-real-time planning, review proposed plan execution, quickly generate planning products, share plan information across individual units, and reduce errors and planning time due to manual data transcription. The primary goal of this Phase 2 SBIR project is to identify inefficient, confusing, and error-producing aspects of the current mission planning interface and implement improved HCI methods to correct them. A primary objective of this work will be to identify and implement workflows which guide the user through the system functions required to achieve desired planning tasks. A User-Centered Design approach will be used throughout development, seeking frequent feedback from system users on how the current features are or arent fulfilling their needs and modifying or adding features in subsequent development cycles in order to ensure ViPER remains a valuable tool for Navy multi-aircraft mission planning.

Benefit:
Anticipated

Benefits:
- Decreased time and error rates while conducting naval aviation strike mission planning. - Faster and more accurate Strike Plan development due to a centralized repository of mission plan decisions and planning data, reducing duplication of effort and planning errors. - Clearer and more comprehensive plan representations which allow planners to share a common planning picture with each other and with external stakeholders. - Better visualization of multi-aircraft interactions, tactics, and tasking to allow more efficient use of aircraft assets to achieve mission goals while maintaining appropriate de-confliction. Commercial Applications - Planning teams that must plan using multiple assets of different types (e.g. aircraft, helicopters, ships, trucks, rail, etc.) where plans must be generated in short periods of time and the plan spans a significant time period (e.g. days to weeks). International Disaster Relief efforts, FEMA, and other humanitarian assistance organizations could benefit from this tool

Keywords:
HUMAN COMPUTER INTERFACE, Naval Aviation, User-centered Design, JMPS, ViPER-CVW, NavMPS, mission planning