Developing a Post-Flight Debriefing Tool: Insights from a UX Workshop and Tool Demonstration

After flight training, student pilots and flight instructors debrief by discussing the trainee’s performance and sharing observations. To improve this process and promote more objective debriefing, a web-based debriefing tool was developed to integrate and present in-flight data (e.g., vector data and position, etc.) and operator data (e.g., physiological and psychometric data, etc.). The tool allows users to replay critical flight segments for improved flight training analysis for, but not exclusively, maritime drone crews. Its development followed a human-centered design approach, with insights gathered through a user experience (UX) workshop and follow-up tool demonstration with experimental flight crews (both in the role of trainees and trainers) in unmanned aviation. Participants evaluated the tool’s user experience before and after the tool customization. While the debriefing tool is perceived as rather neutral, participants embraced the concept and gave valuable insights on effective debriefing and on improving the tool. In general, we can state that the flexible design allows easy customization for diverse user needs, offering a promising framework for effective and more objective debriefing across various domains in aviation.