Chapter 6 

 HUMAN FACTORS IN PANEL DESIGN 



ELIOT STELLAR 



The Johns Hopkins University 



The proper arrangement of panel layouts 

 is one of the basic problems in the design of 

 military equipment for efficient human use. 

 It has already been shown that the efficiency 

 of performance in man-machine situations is 

 greatly increased if individual controls and 

 displays are designed to suit the capacities of 

 the operator as well as the electronic and me- 

 chanical ends they serve. But even with 

 ideally designed controls and displays, it is 

 obvious that a great deal will depend on the 

 arrangement of equipment panels. Both in- 

 dustrial and mihtary investigators have 

 made it clear that some arrangements of con- 

 trols and displays are easy to operate and 

 others conducive to errors and fatigue. In 

 fact, they have started to collect data on the 

 human perceptual and motor capacities that 

 are directly relevant to panel layout prob- 

 lems and have a number of general principles 

 to recommend for improvements in the de- 

 sign of equipment panels. It is the purpose 

 of this chapter to summarize and evaluate 

 the results of these investigations and to 

 describe what the study of human factors in 

 equipment design has to offer in the solution 

 of panel layout problems. 



Fact and Theory in Panel Design. At the 

 outset, it should be emphasized that only a 

 modest amount of headway has actually 

 been made on panel design problems up to 

 the present time. Although we do have sat- 

 isfactory data on many questions, there are 

 great gaps in our knowledge which have been 

 filled in, rather liberally, with opinions and 

 hypotheses. In fact, it is particularly worth 

 noting that there has been a marked tend- 

 ency in the hterature in this area to formu- 

 late general principles of panel design 



prematurely and to offer them as recommen- 

 dations to the design engineer. Ideally, 

 these general principles should be the con- 

 clusions of experimental studies of human 

 capacity in the operation of equipment. 

 Actually, it turns out that many of them are 

 little more than the common sense opinions 

 of experienced engineers and psychologists. 

 It is unfortunate that little attempt has been 

 made to separate fact from opinion in writing 

 about panel design. As a result, it is often 

 difficult to distinguish what we actually 

 know from what somebody thinks or would 

 like to recommend on the basis of practical 

 experience. Of course, both fact and theory 

 are important in the solution of practical 

 problems and in the direction of future re- 

 search. But at this stage of our knowledge, 

 it is crucial that opinion be recognized as 

 such, and wherever possible, be subjected to 

 direct experimental test. 



Principles of Panel Layout. With this 

 fundamental point in mind, we can now 

 consider what has been done on the problem 

 of panel layout. For convenient discussion, 

 we can begin with a brief summary of the 

 basic principles of panel layout which may 

 be found in the Hterature. Actually, nu- 

 merous recommendations for panel design 

 have been made in one form or another, but 

 they may be synthesized into six general 

 statements which cover the major factors 

 that have been investigated. (1) All con- 

 trols and displays should be located within 

 a practical working distance from the opera- 

 tor. (2) Within the practical working area, 

 each control and display should be located in 

 a position where it may be most efficiently 

 used. (3) Where two or more controls or 



153 



