Microsoft Flight Simulator

Problem Description

When using Miscrosoft's Flight Simulator 98, I often load one of the training scenarios. These scenarios include a simulated instructor, who instructs in performing various flight maneuvers, and analyzes performance levels. After making a drastic error, I usually re-run the scenario for a second try. However, if I simply select the menu option "Reset Flight", the scenaio decides not to give me a simulated instructor. It is possible to start from the beginning by reloading the entire scenario, but this is time-consuming (>30 sec). When the scenario is finally reloaded, I have to rearrange the windows.

HCI Analysis

When an instructional flight ends, whether normally or through user intervention, the system resets the plane to the starting position, but the simulated instructor associated with the flight is ignored. This can confuse the user, since it appears that the flight has correctly restarted, but there is no feedback indicating the lack of instruction.

Airplanes are complex objects. Most people using a flight simulator are willing to put in the time and effort necessary to become expert users. Therefore, as Borenstein (1994) points out, the designer should assume that the target audience is a "clever, sophisticated, but impatient user".

Forcing the user to re-load the training flight degrades the efficiency of the system, which is a prime measure of its usability (Shackel, 1991; Nielson, 1993), and becomes increasingly important as users become more knowledgable about the system (Shneiderman, 1992).

The picture below shows Flight Simulator in normal flight mode, after the windows have been rearranged. The top window displays the view out the front of the plane, and contains a sub-window with a map of the area. The bottom window displays the cockpit controls for this plane.

This is my preferred window arrangement, since it gives maximum visibility, while still including a map to assist in navigation.

When a flight is reloaded, the windows snap back to their default locations. This can be disorienting, and violates Apple's (1992) principle of perceived stability.

Flight Simulator includes a preferences setting that claims to control whether window positions are loaded when a flight is loaded (see below), but there is no indication whether the window positions in question are generic default window positions, user-defined window positions, or specific window positions that are stored with flight information. The help system does a poor job of making this feature self-explanatory (as suggested by Suchman, 1989), since it simply says that the preferences allow the user to determine which properties are loaded when a new flight is selected.

Recommendation

Fixing both problems should be quite simple. The "Reset Flight" option needs to be changed so that it resets the instruction module as well as the plane's position. Then, a feature needs to be added that allows the program to retian the user's current window positions when a new flight is loaded. It would be even more helpful if the current window positions were saved when the program was closed, so they could be reloaded when the program started.

References

Apple Computer (1992) Macintosh Human Interface Guidlines. Addison Wesley. [Chapter 1]

Borenstein, N. (1994) Programming As If People Mattered: Friendly Programs, Software Engineering, and Other Noble Delusions. Princeton University Press.

Nielson, J. (1993) Usability Engineering. Cambridge MA: Academic Press. [Chapter 2]

Shackel, B. (1991) "Usability - Context, Framework, Definition, Design, and Evaluation" in Shackel, B. and S. Richardson (eds.) Human Factors for Informatics Usability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Shneiderman, B. (1992) Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction. Addison-Wesley. [Chapter 1]

Suchman, L. (1989) Plans and Situated Actions. New York: Cambridge University Press. [Chapter 2]

rscherle@cs.indiana.edu

Last modified: Fri Mar 26 16:57:42 EST 1999