anotherthing
We are in complete agreement on every point you make. I guess one of the points I am trying to make is that human factors specialists sometimes carry the can for organisational decisions. Technology choices are nearly always organisational decisions at a higher level, often based on cost. HF specialists are usually called in (very) late to try to optimise a system that actually had no professional HF input in its specification or design. Then there are hundreds of constraints about what adaptations are even possible because of the architechure (e.g. Windows in the case of the NavCanada system) and some of its fundamental limitations, or the enornous cost of change requests to bespoke systems. But as HF specialists are the ones who actually talk to the ATCOs, they take the stick, and by sheer involvement in a process - where they did not choose the technology and were hamstrung in its adaptation - they sometimes carry the take the rap for its shortcomings when faced with angry end users. Still, after talking for long enough with enough controllers this point is usually understood - but without this 'debriefing' HF specialists sometimes get unfairly tarnished.