The UX of cockpit design

Introduction

I have been a pilot for more than 5 years but it was only recently when I started to see the similarities in digital design and how a Boeing 747 cockpit is designed. In the past, I used to think that all cockpits were the same and that they just had buttons everywhere. The truth is much more interesting than that! Here are some of the things I learnt from my experience:

A Boeing 747 cockpit has around 10,000 switches, dials and buttons.

The cockpit of a Boeing 747 has around 10,000 switches, dials and buttons. The pilots have to use them frequently, so they’re designed to be easy to reach and simple to operate. But for the most part these are repetitive tasks that don’t require much thought — for instance, turning on the air conditioning or adjusting the flaps on the wings.

The majority of what the pilot does with all those buttons is straightforward — and it’s this fact that makes safety such an important concern in designing cockpits (after all, if you’re making sure that everything works properly then your job should be relatively stress-free). Based on this information about how often each task needs doing and what kind of equipment you need for it (e.g., a button vs a knob), as well as other factors like ergonomics or usability testing by pilots themselves…

Pilots may have to change their language and read a new metric system when they fly a plane from Germany to America.

Just as a web designer, you have to use different languages and read different metrics. You might think this would be easy because you’re a native English speaker, but it’s not — because the US uses inches and feet while the UK uses centimeters and meters.

Even more confusingly: Germany doesn’t even use metric; they’re still on their own system of weights and measures.

If you’re designing planes from Germany to America, pilots need training on how to read a new language (metric) as well as how to do basic arithmetic using a completely new set of numbers (inches). This can feel like having your brain stretched through an industrial-sized meat grinder. And so it goes for web designers who need to design sites for international audiences — a skill set that requires learning about different cultures’ preferences when it comes down to typography as well as their measurement systems!

User Experience Design can learn from Cockpit Design

When it comes to designing a cockpit, you have to think about many things. Every button, knob and switch should be designed in a way that the user can understand their purpose without reading them. They also need to be compact enough so they don’t take up too much space on the panel and make it difficult for an operator to reach them.

The main problem with cockpit design is complexity: there are so many different functions that need to be available at all times that sometimes it’s hard for a pilot just learning how everything works (myself included) and even more difficult when you’re trying to do something critical like landing an airplane or flying through turbulence. But despite this complexity, cockpits are still able to keep things simple enough for pilots who aren’t very familiar with them — how?

It is critical that pilots don’t waste time looking for an emergency button or a light because it could mean death for many.

As someone who designs user interfaces for a living, I can tell you that nearly every single aspect of cockpit design is complex. There are buttons with different purposes and functions that all need to be designed differently, but they all need to work together in order to make sure things go smoothly when everything is going wrong.

I think this would be a great lesson for anyone trying to learn how web design works: if you have multiple buttons with different purposes, make sure that their design styles are compatible. If your site has some help articles and some blog posts about something related, then it might help users understand where these articles are if you use similar-looking buttons for both sets of content (a blog post button looks different than an article one).

Don’t forget this important lesson! You’ll want your users’ experience on your website or application as smooth as possible — and one way of doing so is by making sure they know exactly what each button does without needing too much explanation or looking at it first before pressing them

The design of the cockpit should not encourage bad flying decisions. Same goes for web design and user experience design.

One of the most important lessons I learned from my time flying was about how the placement of buttons on the dash affects decision making in flight. Consider the placement of two buttons: one that adjusts cabin pressure and one that lowers flaps (the horizontal panels on either side of an airplane wing used to increase lift).

Normally these would be placed close together because they are both related to lowering landing speed and increasing stability during taxiing. However, if both buttons were placed in close proximity without any visual cues distinguishing their purpose, there would be increased risk for pilots to accidentally hit one when trying to hit another. Placing a button in the center of your dashboard could cause bad decisions when flying a plane since it takes your eyes off the route ahead — and this goes for web design as well! In addition to avoiding collisions between pages within an app or site layout, make sure every button has its own unique shape so users can easily identify them while scrolling through content or quickly scanning pages​.

Each button has a different purpose and so is designed differently (could be by colour, size or font). Same goes for web buttons.

Each button on a plane cockpit has a different purpose and so is designed differently (could be by colour, size or font). Same goes for web buttons.

The design of the button should be different depending on its purpose (if you want to cancel something, have a clear “cancel” button that is bigger than other buttons). The design of the button should not be confusing to the pilot (the back button in Facebook Messenger is labeled “back” which makes sense when you’re looking at it from an English perspective but what if I’m French? I wouldn’t understand what this label means). Finally, every web page needs to have an easy-to-understand navigation bar so people know where they are and how to get back home easily!

Conclusion

Designers should also look at the physical and mental impact of their work. The user experience design of a cockpit is not just how it looks but how it feels when using it. I think these lessons can be applied to other areas like web design and mobile app development.