Development of Usability Checklist for ECDIS

Abstract

The International Maritime Organization presents harmonized guidelines on Human Centred Design, Usability Testing, and Software Quality Assurance. Now considering e-Navigation, IMO emphasizes the necessity of focusing on human factors to meet user needs and safety requirements. Although many methods for assessment and evaluation of usability have been introduced in various fields, there is room for improvement to the maritime human element. The aim of this paper is to propose items for evaluation of navigational equipment. The Quality Function Deployment method is used for objective selection of the evaluation items. Based on the QFD results, a checklist is proposed for ECDIS, which is navigational equipment that provides electronic charts and information.