In the defense domain, to estimate if a targetis threatening and to which degree is a complex task, thatis typically carried out by human operators due to the highrisks and uncertainties associated. To their aid, different supportsystems have been implemented to analyze the data and providerecommendations for actions. Since the ultimate responsibilitylies in human operators, it is of utmost importance that theytrust and know how to use these systems, as well as have anunderstanding of their inner workings, strengths and limitations.This paper presents, first, a formative user study to char-acterize how air traffic operators carry out threat evaluationrelated tasks. Grounded in these findings and in guidelinesfound in the literature, we present a transparent and highlyinteractive prototype that aims at reducing operator’s cognitiveload and support threat assessment activities. The literaturereview provided on design guidelines, the outcomes of the userstudy, the design of the prototype as well as the results of aninitial evaluation can provide guidance for both researchers andprospective developers of future threat evaluation systems.
This research has been supported by the Swedish Knowledge Foundation under grant 2010/0320 (UMIF), Vinnova through the National Aviation Engineering Research Program (NFFP5- 2009-01315), Saab AB and the University of Skövde. We would like to thank Håkan Warston (Saab AB, Electronic Defence Systems), Klas Wallenius and Kjell Davstad (Saab AB, Security and Defence Solutions) for their valuable feedback, and the participants of the field work and evaluation performed.