UX Military: Redesigning a flagship missile defense C2 for SAM operators
“With this new system, I know exactly what's going on. You've drastically increased our situational awareness” — Soldier during validation
“The Patriot display has been fielded for over a year now and we have received positive feedback and praises on its ease of use and intuitiveness, even from the toughest and most knowledgeable user groups." — PO
“You've reduced our training from several months to several weeks." — Solider, Fort Bliss missile test
“This design unlocks the capabilities of the hardware.” — Soldier
“This is hard, and you guys nailed it.” — PO
“During the tests, we were thrilled to see operators navigate the new WMI with little-to-no advanced training. The WMI displays complex information in an easy-to-understand way, helping Patriot operators make faster, better decisions that ultimately save lives” — Tom Laliberty, Vice President of Land Warfare & Air Defense at Raytheon Missiles & Defense
“The work we did together was the best work I’ve ever been a part of.” — PO of 30+ years
Showing public visuals only // Military UX // Showing public visuals only // Military UX // Showing public visuals only // Military UX // Showing public visuals only // Military UX // Showing public visuals only // Military UX // Showing public visuals only
Solution
We modernized the powerful war machine interface (WMI) command-and-control (C2) for next-gen warfighters.
This was a big effort. This project demonstrates my expertise in defense design by improving situational awareness (SA) for command-and-control (C2) surface-to-air (SAM) operators.
The redesign was received well. We moved the needle in these ways:
Reduced cognitive load by prioritizing and grouping data. There is a lot of data.
Reduced fatigue by discovering, distilling, and visualizing what was most important.
Increased speed of comprehension with many data visualizations — a key goal throughout the system.
Decreased neck strain (odd thing to note) by organizing the design framework based on operator needs.
Reduced eye fatigue simply with a dark-theme UI.
Reduced visual noise with an exception-based status color philosophy.
Increased speed of manual data input.
Decreased training time with consistent conventions, patterns, and styles.
Problem
Warfighters need to make high-stake decisions quickly and accurately. With noisier skies, this is more important.
The hardware is capable, but the legacy software handicapped operators. There is a currently a lot of data: kinematic and otherwise. And data volume is growing each year.
How do we empower SAM operators to make high stakes decisions swiftly, accurately, and confidently?
Goals
Ensure PATRIOT operators can make accurate decisions quickly with confidence.
PATRIOT operators have a stressful job; I don't want it. Granted, they don't carry the weight alone. But it's still brutal.
For the redesign, our goal was to make their job a bit easier. If nothing else, improve their ability to do their job better and faster.
Help users make decisions with more accuracy, more quickly, with more confidence.
Reduce cognitive load. Ease the mental strain so they can operate at a high level longer.
Reduce training time. Training will always exist (for good reason), but let's shorten the time to proficiency.
Unlock the hardware's capability. The legacy UI made functionality hard to access due to poor UX.
Redesign for the next generation, which is steeped in gaming.
Challenges
Top three challenges: Vernacular, decrypting legacy solutions, understanding the SAM ecosystem.
Quick aside: my attitude toward the engineers of the legacy software flipped 180˚ throughout this project. In the beginning I was repulsed by the legacy UI. After learning of their limits and hardware requirements, I became very impressed.
Steep learning curve with an extensive company and industry vernacular.
A lot of data.
A lot of visual noise.
Minimal SME interactions available
Achieving high usability despite legacy restrictions.
Bureaucratic culture: it's hard to cross silos and find the information you need to move forward.
Small design team for a big task (also a positive).
Collaborating with highly technical people. I also really enjoyed this.
Process
Optimizing Usability for High-Stakes Military Applications.
The process was traditional UX with a military flare. There were tool and collaboration limits for reasons outside our control.
In the beginning, I was mostly a visual designer. Later, I was integrated throughout: finding pains, needs, and requirements. And designing solutions, collaborating with SMEs and iterating.
UX Activities:
SME conversations (derived goals, mental model, priorities)
Technical document reading/deciphering in conjunction with technical conversations.
Information architecture diagrams
Wireframes to present contextual solutions, which included elements of technical documents, questions, assumptions, and context scenarios,
High fidelity design containing the same material listed above plus states of visualizations and special components.
Continuous back-and-forth with SMEs and tech team. Refining deliverables accordingly.
Design and interaction framework definition and iteration
Design system definition and iteration including design principles and technical definition
Assets design + production such as icons and illustrations.
Critiqued developed solution
Operator Responses
Responses from SMEs, POs, and operators were positive.
Many nice things were said. As suggestions were made, we vetted and implemented what was within scope.
Some said the redesign reduced training significantly. One WMI operator speculated it reduced training by ~90%.
One subject matter expert was excited how accessible the system's capabilities now are. In his words, the redesign 'unlocked the capabilities'. A common complaint before the redesign was the hardware's significant power, but the inaccessibility of that power via the software.
Some said it was just more intuitive. Some said it was easier to identify and classify tracks.
Here is some PR of the redesign debuted at the 2018 AUSA exhibition. Note: what is show is the developed prototype, not our design mockups.
“With this new system, I know exactly what's going on. You've drastically increased our situational awareness” — Soldier during validation
“You've reduced our training from several months to several weeks." — Solider, Fort Bliss missile test
“The Patriot display has been fielded for over a year now and we have received positive feedback and praises on its ease of use and intuitiveness, even from the toughest and most knowledgeable user groups." — PO
“During the tests, we were thrilled to see operators navigate the new WMI with little-to-no advanced training. The WMI displays complex information in an easy-to-understand way, helping Patriot operators make faster, better decisions that ultimately save lives” — Tom Laliberty, Vice President of Land Warfare & Air Defense at Raytheon Missiles & Defense
“This design unlocks the capabilities of the hardware.” — Soldier
“This is hard, and you guys nailed it.” — PO
“The work we did together was the best work I’ve ever been a part of.” — PO of 30+ years
Usability Metrics
Note: I did NOT facilitate the tests.
SUS: 80 (good to excellent)
System Usability Score (SUS) for the redesigned PATRIOT WMI. This score is based on warfighters’ impression of overall WMI C2 usability. It's a 10 question survey with five response options from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. A score of 80 is considered good to excellent.
SEQ: 6.6 (easiest imaginable)
System Ease Question (SEQ) shows warfighters' "impression of ease". It's a scale from 1 (very difficult) to 7 is (easiest imaginable).
TCR: 79.7%
Task Completion Rating (TCR) is based on the facilitator's judgement. It defines the level at which the task was completed on a scale of 0 to 2. Then turned into a percentage.
