Relative advantage of portable computer-based workcards for aircraft inspection

Following a successful demonstration of the applicability of human factors guidelines to the design of aircraft maintenance documentation (Patel et al ., 1994, Applied Ergonomics, 25 (5) 286-293) a natural extension was to rep lace paper-based workcards with a computer system. Using additional human f actors guidelines for design of computer systems, a prototype hypertext sys tem was developed for use on a portable computer. A number of different wor kcards were accommodated, and an evaluation made of the computer-based work card against both original and improved paper-based workcards. For the task studied, eight inspectors rated the computer-based system highly on scales derived from the guidelines. The computer-based system was a significant i mprovement over the original paper-based workcards. Relevance to industry Process documentation and work instructions need to be used in many industr ies, particularly those certified under the ISO-9000 series of standards. A n obvious way to improve the management of documentation is to deliver it t o the user electronically. This paper shows how the user interface to such a system can be designed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserve d.