Reinventing the familiar: exploring an augmented reality design space for air traffic control

This paper describes our exploration of a design space for an augmented reality prototype. We began by observing air traffic controllers and their interactions with paper flight strips. We then worked with a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and controllers over a period of a year to brainstorm and prototype ideas for enhancing paper flight strips, We argue that augmented reality is more promising (and simpler to implement) than the current strategies that seek to replace flight strips with keyboard/monitor interfaces. We also argue that an exploration of the design space, with active participation from the controllers, is essential not only for designing particular artifacts, but also for understanding the strengths and limitations of augmented reality in general.