The Novelty

The novelty of the MEFISTO project lies in the application of recent software technologies (multimodal user interfaces with possible vocal and data links) to a relevant application area (Air Traffic Control). Formal models are used to address both software problems (such as the choice of the media to support user interactions and the design of the structure of the software architecture) and human related factors (such as the influence of task structure and cognitive capabilities on the software specification). This structured approach contrasts with the more commonly used direct manipulation interface development tools that, while suitable for generating simple graphical interfaces, are less appropriate for complex requirements or novel interfaces. In addition the approach deals with the design of user interfaces for usable, safety critical applications by providing formalisms, design rules and tools for the engineering of such applications.

We want to capture usability and safety requirements for ATC applications check their satisfaction at both the formal specification and the implementation levels. We do not intend to deal with all usability and safety requirements. We are interested in a representative set of requirements at the intersection of these two viewpoints on the system. We develop and use various tools to support the different phases of the design cycle: to express the task model, to translate it into an architectural model, to verify properties of the possible user-application dialogues, to prototype implementations, to evaluate the usability of prototypes.