PS-INP-169 · r1
INPUT
OBSERVED
ENGAGED
BLIND OPERATION LOST
The control that could be found without looking is now somewhere that has to be looked at.
01 DEFINITION
Condition in which a function that held a fixed physical position is moved onto a surface where its position depends on what else the surface is showing, so an action previously performed without looking now requires the eye that was doing something else.
02 CONDITIONS
UNCERTAINTY
MISSING
Where a function is at any moment is not knowable without looking at the surface.
TIME PRESSURE
SHORT
The cost lands in the interval between needing the function and locating it.
ERROR ASYMMETRY
ASYMMETRIC
Looking away to find a control and not using it at all carry different costs.
OPERATOR STATE
CONCURRENT
The eyes are committed elsewhere, which is the whole reason the fixed position mattered.
03 WHERE IT APPEARS
MOBILITYFunctions that lived under the hand at a fixed place now live behind a screen state, and using them takes the eyes off what is ahead.
MEDICALAdjustments made by feel during a procedure move onto a surface that must be looked at to be used.
INDUSTRIALPanel controls consolidated into one display lose the fixed position that let them be operated while watching the process.
AVIATIONA control found by position and shape becomes one found by reading, and reading was what the position was protecting.
MANUFACTURINGMachine functions absorbed into a screen are no longer reachable while the hands and eyes are on the work.
DEFENSEFixed controls consolidated into a reconfigurable surface can no longer be found without looking at it.
04 WHAT AEON WORKED THROUGH HERE
The consolidation was the point: fewer fixed controls, more that one surface could become. What it took was the set of actions the hands had been performing while the eyes were elsewhere. The work went into which of those had to keep a permanent place, and into what the surface gives up by granting it.
What stays unresolved is which functions have to keep a place the hand can find in the dark — a surface that reserves a fixed region for them gives up the flexibility that justified replacing the fixed controls in the first place.