Displaying Uncertainty in Advanced Navigation Systems

Few human factors studies have addressed the issue of displaying the uncertainty of information provided to users; an issue of growing importance given the current proliferation of advanced situation awareness and navigation displays used in the aviation, automotive and maritime environments. This paper first discusses the growing need to develop guidelines concerning when and how to display uncertainty, and then describes the results of two initial studies aimed at both demonstrating the general utility of displaying uncertainty, and determining the optimal ways to visually represent various levels of uncertainty. We conclude that the impact and effectiveness of future multi-sensor situation awareness displays will be dependent on the skillful presentation of data uncertainty.