
On the typography of flight deck documentation – NASA (1992) - Audiophilip
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19930010781
======
Theodores
Strange that I have worked with so many designers over so many years that
ignore basic research like this. In ecommerce it is a constant battle against
block caps for every title, every product name and every banner. It is also a
constant battle to get copy in a legible font with sensible line heights.

Recently I switched some fonts from the designer fonts to native font stacks
with sensible line heights and the conversion rate improved considerably,
although I was not able to measure this as there were external factors, e.g.
sales promotions, that make this not so clear cut. The consensus is that the
faster, easier to read site is winning sales, nobody cares with such emotion
about the exact font now it is totally different on all devices, things have
gone from being exactly specified to whatever it happens to be on the native
font stack, there is almost no way of knowing if that really is 'San
Francisco' or not. What I have not explained to my critical colleagues is how
the 'SF' font changes from 'text' spacing and font to 'display' spacing and
font above 19pt. So the font automagically adjusts itself for optimal
legibility and clarity. I think the NASA typography guys would have approved
of this approach when designing for displays - use the best fonts on the
device. I also think Tim Berners Lee would approve, the original web was
supposed to be with the device doing the look and feel.

~~~
gmac
_it is a constant battle against block caps for every title, every product
name and every banner_

I know how this feels. Designing for people with big goals and limited design
intuition generally means battling the implicit, repeated guidance that
EVERYTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVERYTHING ELSE.

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tragomaskhalos
For the new air traffic control centre in Swanwick here in the UK, I worked
with a team doing UI design for the big 20x20 displays that the controllers
(ATCOs) would use. Because these were effectively radar screen replacements,
the ATCOs insisted that the screens should be black, with all the aircraft
tracks, track blocks and other such on the screen in bright colours, as this
is what they were used to. The UI experts said no, research indicates that it
is better (more restful on the eyes etc) to use a light background, with the
tracks in dark colours, and pastels for the track blocks. It was interesting
to see how much research went into all this, much more that simple user
preference.

The upshot however was that the ATCOs won, and the radar-style colour scheme
was what was delivered.

~~~
posterboy
Cue discussion about terminals and all-nighters preferring dimmed colors.

~~~
Neliquat
Guilty of this. Black background and light grey, deep blue highlights, deep
red syntax. Staring at white boxes too long makes my eyes hurt.

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jkaljundi
There is also this one: Legible, are you sure? An experimentation-based
typographical design in Safety-critical context [http://lii-
enac.fr/articles/vinot-chi-2012.pdf](http://lii-enac.fr/articles/vinot-
chi-2012.pdf)

Wired had an article a few years ago:
[http://www.wired.co.uk/article/aircraft-
typography](http://www.wired.co.uk/article/aircraft-typography)

~~~
jonshariat
I've been writing a book on ways design can play a critical role in our lives.
This reminds me of one of the stories in the book: A pilot cashes a plane
because he didn't realize which decent mode he was in and 3.3 and 33 look
awfully similar in the display. These things can be the difference between
life and death.

For those interested in more:
[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920038887.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920038887.do)

~~~
WalterBright
It's more than that. Medicines should be in bottles where the category is
indicted by the bottle shape and color, and the stronger the color the more
concentrated/dangerous the medicine is. This would reduce a lot of hospital
accidental deaths.

Bottle shapes indicating content have a history going back to wine bottles.

~~~
DanBC
For people interested in this, there are examples on Twitter

[https://twitter.com/EzDrugID](https://twitter.com/EzDrugID)

[https://twitter.com/ismp1/status/840239328467001345](https://twitter.com/ismp1/status/840239328467001345)

[https://twitter.com/TerryFairbanks/status/848743485213724672](https://twitter.com/TerryFairbanks/status/848743485213724672)

[https://twitter.com/EzDrugID/status/652036570313154560](https://twitter.com/EzDrugID/status/652036570313154560)

~~~
WalterBright
The medical industry's resistance to this (and checklists) is a shameful
travesty.

~~~
FabHK
Absolutely. I loved Atul Gawande's book _The Checklist Manifesto_ , about how
to transfer safety lessons from aviation to the medical industry. Airplane
accidents are somewhat more visible than individual deaths in hospitals, so
the focus is clearly there, but I'm sure more people die of mistakes in
hospitals than in airplanes.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Checklist_Manifesto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Checklist_Manifesto)

------
rsync
Related: the Typesets in the Future blog.[1]

[1] [https://typesetinthefuture.com/](https://typesetinthefuture.com/)

~~~
snowcrshd
That blog looks great! Thank you for sharing :-)

------
metaphor
For what it's worth, the US military often references MIL-STD-1472 [1] to
frame general design requirements for pretty much anything that involves
direct human interaction.

[1]
[http://quicksearch.dla.mil/qsDocDetails.aspx?ident_number=36...](http://quicksearch.dla.mil/qsDocDetails.aspx?ident_number=36903)

~~~
keehun
This is really cool!

Just glanced through it, and saw this:

    
    
        5.4.2
        Orientation.
        Labels and information thereon (i.e., words and symbols) shall
        be oriented horizontally to read from left to right.  Vertical
        orientation, reading from top to bottom, may be used only when
        labels are not critical for personnel safety or performance and
        where space is limited. Where vertical orientation is necessary,
        the characters shall be readable in an upright orientation as
        depicted on figure 31. Sideways text and text read from bottom
        to top are unacceptable.
    

Such a definition seems like common sense, and then I realized there is
probably someone out there in the vast military industry who probably doesn't
care enough and may actually place a label sideways from bottom to top...

It is also amazing how much longer it takes me to read a label when letters
are arranged vertically but not sideways. Sideways and vertical is quicker for
me.

~~~
falcolas
That is interesting. I agree with you on the speed of reading, but it does
offer one very interesting advantage - every single label offers an indication
as to the "proper" orientation of the object you're reading the label on.

I imagine that alone would be quite useful in emergency situations, or even in
general loading/unloading operations.

My wife works for a shipping company, and unless it's on a pallet, it is
likely to be orientated incorrectly on at least one of the legs of its
journey.

------
techdragon
There are a few other reports on the topic in the NASA archives. Such as this
one which references the report linked to by this post.

Designing Flight Deck Procedures - 2005 -
[https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110016464&hterms=Typogr...](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110016464&hterms=Typography&qs=N%3D0%26Ntk%3DAll%26Ntt%3DTypography%26Ntx%3Dmode%2520matchallpartial)

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hackuser
This should have (1992) added to the title. Still interesting. What tipped me
off was this observation:

 _There are over 2300 typefaces available today._

------
ldjb
Note that this is from 1992. Even so, it's definitely fascinating to see the
amount of attention to detail put into the design of the documentation.

------
FabHK
As one (somewhat less serious) anecdote, remember the Best Movie mishap at the
recent Academy Awards?

Better typography could almost certainly have prevented that:

[https://medium.freecodecamp.com/why-typography-matters-
espec...](https://medium.freecodecamp.com/why-typography-matters-especially-
at-the-oscars-f7b00e202f22)

------
hahajk
The document is a bit equivocal on the use on serif vs sans-serif fonts but
eventually states that sans-serifs are usually more legible. Interestingly, US
pocket checklists (for use in flight) use a serif font for the routine
checklists and sans-serif for the emergency procedures. I wonder if there was
some research that supports that decision. ([1] is an F-14 checklist I found
on the internet but other platforms' checklists have identical formatting.)

[1]
[http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/usa/grumman/f-...](http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/usa/grumman/f-14tomcat/navair-01-f14aap-1b-natops-
pocket-checklist-f-14b-aircraft.html)

------
sddfd
I wonder why they don't insert a small vertical space before each line with a
bullet point in front.

For me, this makes it much easier to identify the groups of lines that belong
together.

