Evaluation of the Readability and Legibility of Fonts on the Cockpit Interface

Abstract

The fonts on the aircraft interface play a vital role in the speed and accuracy of the pilot's decision-making process. In this paper, we create a new type-face to display textual information on the aircraft interfaces, then compare it with two fonts (Futura and Helvetica) widely used in aeronautical context. The font/background contrast threshold measurement and eye movement experiment for visual search of target characters are used to evaluate the readability and legibility of fonts. From this evaluation, we find that the leg-ibility and readability of Air are better than the other two fonts in the case of low contrast. The results produced by Helvetica and Futura are not much different but have advantages over Air in some characters. The experimental conclusions and data provide important scientific basis for the development and evaluation of cockpit fonts.

Keywords: Aircraft, Cockpit Interface, Legibility, Readability, Evaluation, Font

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1001046