- Capstone Project
- UX Design
- UI Design
- Usability Testing
- Mentoring
The OPTIMIS capstone project was a project initiated by the need to develop a better system for recording pilot evaluations
CHALLENGE/PROBLEM
The current system for flight instructors to evaluate pilots in the US Air Force involves instructor writing down their evaluations on a paper form. Once the flight evaluation is complete the instructor goes back to their office and records their results in an Excel spreadsheet. This process is tedious and time consuming. The average evaluation takes up to two weeks to be recorded because the instructors have numerous duties in addition to their evaluations.
APPROACH
The first step was to do thorough research of the current problem. There was the obvious answer of converting from an archaic paper system to a more modern digital one, but would users embrace the new system?
After conducting user interviews we formulated personas to define the type of user we would be designing for and began creating wireframes for usability testing.
Once we completed functional testing on the wireframes we made modifications based upon user feedback and iterated our designs.
Once we had a working prototype we tested in a virtual environment similar to what users would use in actual flight conditions.
RESULTS
The resultant prototype created a digital application which allowed evaluators to complete their pilot testing before the flight was over. Once the instructors returned to their office the information was automatically uploaded to their computers. This drastically reduced pilot evaluation time from two weeks to less than two hours from start to finish.