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Lightning Talk
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Main Stage
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Avio: Rethinking the Air Traffic Controller Interface
UX Design Awards winner
How can design support expert decision-making when mistakes are not an option?
Nicole and Sarah share their bachelors thesis, honoured with the UX Design Award Gold 2025 – New Talent, in which they rethought an interface for air traffic controllers.
By aligning with mental models, enhancing situational awareness and optimising cognitive workload in high-pressure contexts, they reveal both the opportunities and challenges of designing for safety-critical environments - from early research and prototyping to validation with controllers.
avio is a user interface concept for the tower controller workstation.
It integrates key functions into a unified system solution to make the planning and coordination of take-offs and landings more efficient and safer.
By integrating individual systems on a touch screen and combining them with a touch pen that provides tactile feedback, the concept supports the controller's mental model, improves situational awareness and reduces cognitive and physical workload in high-pressure situations.
The avio project was awarded a UX Design Award in 2025.
