Optimization of aircraft and vehicle interface design

The dialogue between the operator and any system is provided by an interface. To prevent human error in human-machine-system interractions user-friendly interfaces must be designed. In this thesis, interface design problem is evaluated comprehensively from qualitative ?Human Factors, Ergonomy, Design Criteria, Usability, etc.? and quantitative ?AHP, ANP, F-PROMETHEE, MCDM, etc.? aspects. Various models ?QAP, CFL, etc.? are studied and ?Relative Layout Optimization Model and Sequential Approach? are developed. Finally ?Qualitative, Quantitative, Unified, Relative ? interfaces were gained.Qualitative and quantitative approaches have different advantages and drawbacks. We proposed that ?Unified Design? gained by combining results from two approaches will be more user-friendly. To test this hypothesis, ?the most useful interface design? ranking is determined as (1) Unified, (2) Quantitative and (3) Qualitative Interface Designs. Results corroborated our hypothesis.Furthermore an interface layout design model is developed. Besides to flow values, interractions between the items may affect locations relatively. By including ?Relative Criteria? constraints, layout problems can be solved in a more realistic manner.In the ?Sequential Approach? layout problem is sequentially solved for every cluster. Rather than solving the original problem of many unknown variables, small size problems are constituted by clustering algorithms. Reaching the optimality in a short time reveals the effectiveness of our methods.Contrary to subjectivity of usability evaluation and design techniques in the literature, more objective results can be gained with our approaches, because the methods we have developed and applied are all analytical.Key Words : Interface Design, Human Factors, Layout Models, ANP, F-PROMETHEE, MCDM, CFL.