Today’s flight decks are the result of an evolutionary development process. With every design step the level of automation and amount of available information increased. Considerable challenges in relation to information management are documented. Looking into the future, the introduction of Reduced Crew Operation (RCO) may aggravate these challenges. Removing the second pilot will remove cognitive capacity, which is a central factor for today’s information management.

The increasingly relevant question of how to properly manage information on the flight deck in the future is evaluated in this thesis. A development process based on the “Ergonomics of Human System Interaction” standard is pursued to answer this question. Challenges related to information management and existing efforts in this domain are identified. Based on a context analysis of future operations a new concept of operations centered on the human operator on the flight deck is developed. Mission manager is established as a new job title for pilots. Requirements towards information management on the future flight deck are derived. An information management concept for a human operator interacting with a highly automated aircraft is proposed. Goal oriented Information Management (GoIM) is developed to describe this interaction. The implementation of the concept of operations and GoIM in hard- and software is described. Hypotheses towards the parameters of effectivity, efficiency, and satisfaction of usability are formulated. An overall beneficial rating of usability is hypothesized.

Evaluation of the concept is performed using a purpose-built RCO research simulator. Users are tasked to perform a two-part evaluation study, consisting of an application usability test and a scenario-based evaluation, utilizing the software implementation. It is shown with a 95% confidence level, that the GoIM concept offers acceptable usability. Backed by positive user feedback GoIM is shown to be a potential solution for future information management on the flight deck. Recommendations towards the further development of the herein proposed concept are given. A closer user interaction and more focused design work is advised. Further broadening the concept and performance-based evaluation and validation is recommended.