How the use of human factor engineering capabilities helped the company to develop an advanced product efficiently, accurately and rapidly.
SmartEye is an innovative augmented reality eyewear system, which graphically presents infantry soldiers with up-to-date combat information on the battlefield in which he finds himself.
Planning and presenting an operational user experience for a system which was still in the planning and development stages and was not yet a completed product. The system includes the operation of physical controls to operate the digital interface and required “blind” operation.
Constraints: Performing tests during the development stage, while the actual system was not yet available. We were required to devise creative solutions and create a suitable imaging environment to examine the solutions we designed.
Research: Learning the environment and the need
We researched and studied the operational world of the customer through interviews and observations. We analyzed the execution stages and defined exact tasks to be performed by the system users. During the research stage, we refined the characterization of the intended users, as well as the use scenarios. Through our research, we validated and changed some of the assumptions which led to the previous characterization and product adjustments were made to meet the various needs of the soldiers on the battlefield.
Development of the imaging environment: We discovered that the characterized environment did not match the environment in which the customer would experience the product. In fact, the characterization was conducted on a standard computer screen, whereas the product is intended to be worn on the eyes, graphic information on the real environment will be displayed in augmented reality layer – an additional anchor.
Therefore, we transformed the work environment into a virtual reality environment – which is the closest in terms of technology and through which the user may experience the information when it is displayed to him in his field of vision and not on a computer screen.
These changes allowed both us and the development team to learn the habits of the users and how they work today; to examine, by experience, alternative interfaces during the characterization stage; to examine learning and operational challenges of characterized system capabilities; to identify potential problems which will be corrected during characterization and to demonstrate to the customer and decision makers how the final system will look.
Dramatic acceleration of the development process which led to savings of the organization’s resources and time.
Images Source: Elbit Smart Eye brochure
