Using Relative Luminance to Inform the Design and Evaluation of User Interfaces for Dark-Adapted Operators

The U.S. Navy’s Bridge Design Integration effort has established requirements and guidelines to support the operational performance of dark-adapted operators. The design of software user interfaces has an influence on overall light output of displays. However, software designers often do not know the light output characteristics of the hardware, nor the operational setting of the user, and therefore cannot design to specific luminance levels that impact total light output and contrast of text to background. This paper outlines the Bridge Design Integration efforts in using relative luminance, which requires only input variables, to guide the development of user interfaces for the dark-adapted operator.