Visual displays are key components of information, communication, and computing systems.
Because of the large information bandwidth required for image-based communication, displays are frequently performance bottlenecks for such systems. Display design may, therefore, determine the degree of success of such systems. The key aspect of a successful display design is the specification of meaningfully quantifiable and measurable objectives.
To be most relevant for a given application, these objectives should be based on the ability of an operator to perform his task.
Such task-based objectives can be used to evaluate systems, and to optimize the display parameters.
Given a quantitative, task-based performance measure, it is, in principle, possible to optimize the display by the brute-force approach of designing prototypes with different set of parameters and measuring the performance empirically.