What’s Your Favorite App? Let’s Do That for Aviation Safety

When you ask someone about their favorite application (app) you usually get an enthusiastic answer. Ask why they like the app and they will continue talking. No matter the age or occupation nearly everyone has a few favorite software applications on their smart phone or computer. This article considers why certain applications, or websites, are most popular and why users like them. Finally, the author asks “why don’t we do that in aviation.”

Favorite App Answers

I like to ask the question, about your favorite app, to a room full of senior AMTs at an Inspection Authorization Seminar. The first reaction is dead silence! One could think that senior aviators don’t have iPhones, or the equivalent. Then, all it takes is one respondent to start the conversation like, “My favorite app is the Weather Channel. It knows where I am or keeps my other favorite destinations. It shows the data as I want to see it: video, data table, pictures, and a variety of maps. It warns me if bad weather is coming to my location.”

Let’s look at a few more examples. “Trip Advisor” is another that is mentioned as a favorite. You can easily find every detail about a country, state, city, or neighborhood. The information on that site is provided by users. If you like the reviewers you can rate them high. By seeing the author’s ratings you have some idea if the reviews are helpful. If the reviews are incorrect or unfair there is a way to comment accordingly. If you search for something like “Hot Dog Stands” then Trip Advisor will keep you posted on new stands in your area. That site rates reviewers, follows your interests in food and other destination interests to you, and keeps you informed. Trip Advisor will also help you find, reserve, and even purchase flights, cars, hotel rooms, and more. It uses video, still pictures, and more.

Many like “Amazon.com,” the ultimate shopping site. Sites like Amazon, E-Bay, and Trip Advisor, and many more go far beyond a simple application. They provide a lot of information, user experience, and virtual automatic customer service. These sites involve the user by permitting sellers and buyers to rate and comment on one another. In that sense you are involved as a user and can be a digitally responsible participant.

More than one of our meeting attendees said that Starbucks is their favorite app. Why? The app provides relevant real-time application about not only the closest store location but information related to the daily special and even the wait time. Again, simplicity of use and real-time access to relevant information make the app possible.

The commuting crowd likes WAZE. Like the best applications, this app capitalizes on crowdsourcing to keep drivers apprised of traffic information along their route of travel. WAZE gives the best route based on those who are traveling the routes. WAZE lets you know if something just fell off a truck or if there is a radar trap around the bend. Why do people like WAZE? Again, this app is real-time, relevant, adaptable, easy to use, and delivers high value information. With WAZE you are an active participant, with your name or not. Many WAZE drivers are so enthusiastic about the app that they start WAZE before starting the engine.

Everyone wants to know how much that house on the corner is selling for. “There’s an app for that,” Zillow. Users like it because of the relevant information, the simple displays, the pictures, videos, maps, and more. You can sell, buy, rent, arrange financing, and furnish your housing right from that app. By the way, AutoTrader does the same things for cars, trucks, motorcycles, and boats.

Popular App Features

I have tried to list the features that make popular applications favorable to the user.

• Easy to use

• Delivers information specifically relevant to me

• Links me to related data/information sources

• Timely, I see information the very moment that it is submitted by a public user

• Permits exchange of pictures, audio, video, etc.

• Gets me involved in submitting information back to site

• Summarizes the data for me

• Presents summary data in multitude of ways

• Let’s me rate the reporter or the information value

• Knows my interests and information requirements

• Has broad capability, likely beyond my immediate requirements

• Engages me with special interest groups relevant to me

• Gets me involved and enthused

Apps for Aviation Safety

During my questioning, to sizable audiences, I have never heard of a government app that is on the favorite list. While the Affordable Care website was mentioned as a “favorite,” in spite of widespread audience applause, it is not relevant to aviation safety or to this article. There are a lot of safety-related sites from FAA, NTSB, ASRS, and DOT on the government side. Industry organizations like AOPA, NBAA, A4A, ARSA, and AEA all have sites that contain excellent information. However, these sites do not have many of the design features of the common favorite apps. These sites, while evolving, are products of conventional design and software development practices.

Most conventional/legacy websites can hardly be called “apps.” They are generally repositories to dump data, using a standard format. In many cases the data that you submit must be reviewed/edited by “experts” before it is posted. That process can take days if not weeks. Most of the data on conventional websites are compiled by the site owner and are not conducive to fast intuitive searches. In many cases one must speak with designated website data technicians, or even a committee, to achieve a meaningful search. I am especially amused when data site owners tell you that they cannot assist you because they do not like your query and they question the motives of your search. A modern app is not prejudicial about your query.

One site that falls into the “conventional/legacy category” is the FAA Service Difficulty Reporting System. That system has been a digital database for about 20 years. There are also paper files dating to the mid-'60s. It is a reflection of late '80s-early '90s dated database and interface. It has been revised twice as database and interface technologies have evolved. The SDRS has about 1.1 million reports, with nearly 3,000 reports pending the 45- to 60-day lag period. Although a small group of motivated industry and FAA experts have been able to use SDRS existing reports, it is beyond the ability/interest for most people. Despite this, the requirement for this data remains important today and tomorrow.

A Modern App for SDRS?

What if the SDRS could be modernized? What would it look like? What would be the features/capabilities? What are the design specifications? How could that be done? There are a lot of questions that are great fodder for speculation here.

A new SDRS would have the simple look and feel of the “favorite apps” described above. The list of features and user involvement features above is the very same that could help SDRS become a favorite application for aviators. Such a system would serve designers, manufacturers, maintenance organizations, pilots, owners, regulators, and anyone with an interest in aviation safety. The system would be linked to legacy systems as appropriate.

A new SDRS would be highly interactive. Data would flow two ways, easy and fast to get it in and easy and fast to get it back. Anyone could look into the system. If they choose to register they will be able to add information, comment on other reports, and start building a credibility rating for their inputs. They can choose to have relevant information pushed to them. They would be full-scale participants on the site just like the most popular apps.

Active users could add any kind of written or multimedia data into the system. It would “go live” as soon as they push enter. Automatic software would do an initial screen for the simple things, like appropriate language. The real screening starts as other users rate the quality/validity/reliability of your inputs. If you receive poor ratings it will impact your credibility on subsequent reports. There could be a way for readers to alarm the data gatekeepers if something needs immediate attention. Most data exchange will be in real time, never waiting for gatekeeper review/approval. Immediate peer-to-peer comments will establish the credibility of the information.

How will software designers know what capabilities the app should have? Unlike an archaic list of software specification a new SDR could depend on “users' stories.” For example, a team of multi-disciplinary industry and government users, with early public involvement, could create initial stories.

An used story could be: “As an aviation maintenance technician, I want to search all the Advisory Circulars on a specific aircraft while conducting the annual inspection.” Hundreds of user stories can define the initial SDRS app, which can be built in a modular way. This would permit a launch of the app with partial features. After first launch users will have ongoing opportunity to add features that were not conceived at the time of initial specification.

The SDRS ideas above sound like a Ph.D.’s or software engineer’s dream of a modern government-produced safety app. It is not a dream. It can happen. The right team of industry and FAA are not only dreaming but also meeting to plan a new and modern way to promote aviation data exchange. I can envision such an app now. Call it the Aviation Data Exchange, AVDEX for short.