Project Summary
This was one of the largest efforts I worked on during my time at GTRI and also one of my favorite projects. The premise was simple; develop an iPad application that could be used as a digital checklist for the crew of a KC-135 Stratotanker. These are the large planes that you always see doing the mid-air refueling in movies where they have au unfortunate tendency to blow up dramatically and our product was intended to prevent these dramatic explosions. All kidding aside, we were tasked to create an application that the flight crew could run on their iPad minis that would allow them to digitally complete various checklists, improving upon the current system which required them to page through a phonebook sized list of emergency protocols.
Developer Spec Document: Download PDF
*Full case study available upon request
Additional Info
I love this project for several reasons; the team I worked with, the unique problems of app building in a challenging environment (the cargo bay of a giant plane with gloves on), and the result we achieved.
The team energy on this project was awesome. Our developer was in-house and she was very responsive, very easy to work with, and very pragmatic. Two of my co-workers worked tirelessly to liaison with several SMEs to go line by line in each existing checklist so they could be converted digitally. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude as I avoided that fate through their hard work. I was responsible for creating screen mockups of varying states of different checklists to showcase functionality and ensure compliance with MIL-SPEC standards that allow the user to manipulate the app while working in a degraded environment (shaky plane, large gloves, etc.)
Dealing with these MIL-SPEC standards was a very unique problem on this project. It’s fairly standard on many projects GTRI does, however it was my first time even hearing about them. They provide an extremely challenging environment to design within, which makes creating even the simplest screens a challenge. I cannot think of another project where I had my Visual Design abilities put to such a test.
My biggest point of pride on this project, is the result we achieved. We received glowing feedback on the final product from a variety of flight crew (some of which we had used throughout the process as test subjects) – and our sponsor was extremely happy with the result. You can see some of the original screens that were being created before out team got involved in the expanded case study for this project and how much of a difference we made in the quality of the final product.