Originally Posted by
noske
Airbus tried hard to do the right thing, putting all the indications for the left engine in the left column and those for the right engine in the right column. Nevertheless the FO got confused, and page 37 in the
report is a good illustration of what he thought he saw and why.
I'm surprised that among the recommendations in the report there is none for Airbus to improve that part of the engine display. One could easily give the text column a better symmetry by putting the "VIB" above the N1/N2 rather than next to it. And, like zahnpastaesser said, maybe the terms N1/N2 should better be avoided in this context. LP/HP or FAN/CORE would be obvious alternatives.
Of course when seeing the display it makes "sense" why the FO confused this in times of high stress. Its a terrible design. Speaking generally - I have noticed the smartphone generation coming through in many industries have a default expectation of visual intuition... software displays today are designed in a specific and logical way, placing a legacy or non-standard display to younger generation reaps confusion in unpredictable ways
The bus gauge is awfully designed. However, when you fly the thing day in and day out there is an expectation you understand it!