Background

The Aeronautical Navigation Office is dedicated to delivering timely, relevant, and validated worldwide aeronautical Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) on-demand, ensuring Safety of Navigation, supporting DoD military operations, and advancing national security objectives.

Vision: Safeguard the integrity of flight safety and navigation domestically, thereby ensuring national security.

Aero analysts, characterized by their resilience, are tasked with managing a multitude of changes on a frequent basis to ensure the accuracy of updates critical to the safety of DoD pilots.

To facilitate their work, analysts require a simplified data management solution that minimizes the risk of oversight. This solution should instill confidence by providing comprehensive information necessary for mission success.

Ultimately, streamlining the analysts' workflow by reducing redundancy and manual processes will enhance their ability to produce precise aeronautical data. The ACES team called for a clean, modernized appearance and a total code refactor to address years of unstructured code and sluggish site performance.

Due to years of legacy spaghetti code and a lack of user-centered design, Aero analysts encountered challenges in accessing comprehensive information. The disorderly accumulation of data throughout the experience led to confusion and frustration. Moreover, the outdated interface utilized a cumbersome tree branch-style file folder system, requiring users to navigate through numerous clicks to locate essential information. This convoluted process eroded users' confidence in the system and left them feeling uncertain about the completeness of their data. Additionally, the absence of a mechanism to alert users to potential airfield notices further compounded usability issues.

Enhanced safety and navigation: By prioritizing the NFAA branch, we anticipate a significant improvement in the processing of NFDD data within NGA. This targeted effort is expected to impact 50% of the ADDE database, resulting in the delivery of more precise and timely information. Ultimately, this initiative aims to ensure safer skies and provide pilots with the most relevant data for their flights.

By implementing the following initiatives: 

• Creating a simplified search function and organizing information to align with users' mental models
• Reduce the excessive number of clicks required to access necessary information 
• Refactor the code to optimize loading times

We will empower users to efficiently locate all the information essential for their missions. These enhancements are anticipated to drive higher user adoption rates and reduce the need for help tickets.     

After doing some background research we decided to narrow our solution to one cohesive experience that focused on three goals:

Navigation- The ACES site houses many important documents of airfields around the globe. The current site lacked navigation hierarchy, and didn't align with users' mental models. Users need an organized system of information so they can confidently carry out their mission with all the information they need. 

Simplicity- A common complaint with the current system was users having trouble understanding how to use it. Information was buried and took many clicks to get to the find what they needed. Users requested a clean minimal interface. 

Contextual searches- Users had mentioned a search bar at the top that allowed them to search for a specific airfield by name would be very helpful. 

Twice a year, the Air Force convenes a four-day conference that serves as a gathering for DoD analysts, pilots, and specialists in aeronautical fields. This event provides a platform for sharing ideas and staying informed about developments within the DoD organization.

During these conferences, we took the opportunity to engage potential users in design concepts for the AERO portal redesign. Employing a guerrilla-style approach, we courteously approached passing attendees, inviting them to provide feedback on our prototype. This approach proved highly effective, as many users appreciated the chance to contribute their insights. Prior to testing, we prepared a moderator's guide to ensure consistency in tasks and questions. To contextualize the prototype, we presented users with scenarios and tasks, prompting discussion and feedback along the way.

While we aimed to uncover various insights during usability sessions, our primary objective was to address a key question: Can users independently locate and download the necessary information without external assistance?

With the help of the scenarios we created and probing questions, this setup gave us a good sense of direction on what we needed to do next with the project.  

 A few quotes from the usability testing were:  

"Wow this is amazing. It's visually appealing and it is easy to find what I'm looking for." 

"... Much better than the crap we were using before." 

"I can't wait until this is fully operational." 

"This is definitely a time saver. Finding terminals with the old site was a nightmare."

 Some of the recommendations we had to increase usability weren't feasible with the way the new website was being developed. We worked with the developer to come up with a new solution to combat this issue while keeping the users in mind.

Looking back on this project some I gained some important take aways: 

•  Validate ideas as early as possible with external users.
•  It's okay to not have a high fidelity prototype prior to testing, you can use early sessions to share your conceptualizations and get feedback from that 
• Make sure all possible scenarios are thought through and designed out 
• Define more comprehensive measurements for the goals.  
• Be articulate with your thoughts and keep thorough documentation of the project