Touch keeps the work active.
Handling a tool with more than the eyes supports memory and attention, eases cognitive load and keeps the controller actively involved.
It shaped a removable strip and changes written by hand.
TESS · Air traffic control
The strip was never just paper.
A workstation concept for air traffic control that keeps the physical strip’s role in memory, planning and teamwork — while connecting it to a digital system.
Explore the case01 / Starting point
What disappears when a control strip disappears?
In 2012, German air traffic control was moving from paper flight strips towards digital systems. The strip carried each aircraft’s information, but its value went beyond the data printed on it.
A controller could tilt it to flag a situation, write on it to commit a change, or see a partner’s work without asking. We wanted to understand which of these quiet interactions a digital replacement would keep — and which it would erase.
I developed TESS as my bachelor’s thesis with Martha Miosga and Luise Pescheck. The three of us shared every phase, from fieldwork to the full-scale model.
- Memory
Writing and arranging keep the traffic picture active in the controller’s mind.
- Plan
Order, marks and earlier values make upcoming decisions visible.
- Conversation
Movement, gestures and position communicate across a two-person team.
02 / Fieldwork
Three centres. Three ways of working.
We visited three control centres of DFS, Germany’s air navigation service (Deutsche Flugsicherung), in Langen, Munich and Karlsruhe, spoke with controller teams and compared a paper workflow with two generations of digital tools. The interviews happened before we designed TESS.
Paper strips
In Langen (P1), both controllers worked on the same strips and talked directly. They could handle, mark and arrange each strip by hand, but its information could not update itself.
Electronic strips
In Munich (P1/PSS), pen tablets kept the strip metaphor on a digital surface. The two tablets sat far apart, and the eyes jumped between radar and tablet.
Labels on radar
In Karlsruhe (P1/VAFORIT), information was current on screen, but the physical object and many of its everyday gestures were gone.
03 / Insight
Current data needed familiar cues.
In our interviews, paper supported handling, marking and shared planning; the digital systems kept information current. That tension became our design brief: connect the strip to the system while preserving deliberate gestures and a shared view of the work.
Less hands-onMore hands-onDigitalAnaloguePaper stripsElectronic stripsRadar labelsTESSthe design target
As active as paper.
As connected as digital.
The interviews became 16 themes in an affinity diagram, 13 opportunity areas, 16 design principles and three use cases. From them we drew three theses: on tangibility, on the value of the work and on collaboration.
A system that takes over too much erodes competence.
The more a system does for people, the more their skills weaken over time — and with them the sense that their own work counts.
It shaped support that stays optional, so controllers keep planning the traffic themselves.
Paper strips made teamwork easy.
Unlike the paperless strip system, paper strips supported working together — and with it, intuitive and safe work.
It shaped the 170° layout and one shared strip bay.
Which ideas would carry the theses? Many partial solutions went up on a wall, some of them deliberately far-fetched, and were checked against the use cases. We tested six with quick visualisations and paper prototypes.
04 / Workstation
Keep the object. Change the system around it.
TESS proposed a removable strip with an E-Ink display and pen input. A stepped surface would bring radar, information and workspace together. Two desks would turn towards each other, with one shared strip bay between them.
A strip you can still hold.
Paper strips could be picked up, marked and arranged while controllers planned traffic. A removable E-Ink strip would keep those actions and receive current information from the system.
In the concept, every strip carries an E-Ink display. It does not reflect, stays readable from the flat angle of the bay and keeps its last state if the power fails, as paper does. Writable colour E-Ink was still in development in 2012, so in the prototype an iPad stood in for the digital strip.
- Blue foam
A form test. Pressing the end lifts the strip only slightly.
- Ureol
With a tipping edge, pressing the end tips the strip up.
- 3D model
A 22.5° tipping edge gave the best lift for the least force.
Stepped, not curved.
In the full-scale test, the curved mock-up distorted the image from some seats and made targets in the bend hard to reach. A stepped surface kept radar, information and workspace in one field, with clearer places for input.
Turn towards the other person.
Strips and gestures helped two controllers coordinate without stopping to explain every action. The proposed 170° arrangement opened sightlines to the partner and their screen, with a shared strip bay between them.
- Turned away
The partner can see your screen, but the posture feels dismissive.
- Facing each other
An open, connected posture, but no view of the partner’s screen.
- 170°, slightly facing
It invites talk and collaboration, and each can see – and point at – the other’s screen.
05 / One flight
Follow a flight across the desk.
Arrival, planning, a changed value and hand-off form one connected journey. This representative journey combines excerpts from the project film and photographs of the 1:1 model. Callsigns vary between the images; the sequence shows the proposed workflow, not an operational flight.
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A flight joins the picture.
Incoming strips would appear in the shared bay. Their position and colour made the next work visible to both controllers; a new strip had to be actively accepted.
The shared strip bay, from the project film. · Original material
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Take the flight into focus.
Placing a strip on the active surface would select its aircraft and route on radar. Weather, flight plan and aircraft details could open beside it.
A strip on the projected workspace of the model. · Original material
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Write a new clearance.
The controller would cross out the old altitude, write a new one and confirm it. The earlier value remained visible, and the radar label briefly inverted when the update took effect.
Writing on a strip in the bay, from the project film. · Original material
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Pass the flight on.
The HO control was designed for handing the flight to the next sector. After that action, the strip would darken and could be removed from the active surface.
The hand-off control beside a strip on the projected workspace. · Original material
A changed value should leave a trace.
We tested how to carry a familiar paper gesture into the connected strip. The chosen sequence kept handwriting, gave it enough room and left the previous value visible.
A dropdown might be quicker, but the physical act of writing was part of how controllers kept track of a change. In our paper prototypes, tapping again to confirm could also trigger accidental acceptance. A separate confirmation made the step deliberate.
- Mark the value
The old altitude is crossed out rather than disappearing at the first touch.
- Make room to write
A larger field slides open below, so a new number need not fit a narrow cell.
- Write, then confirm
The handwriting is recognised as input; a separate control confirms it.
- Keep the history
The new value appears, and the previous one stays crossed out.
The radar showed the response.
The selected strip connected a flight on the desk to its aircraft and route on radar. Try how the proposed label used colour for status and briefly inverted after a confirmed value change.
Our team is responsible for the flight
Who is responsible for the flight? Choose a state or tap the label on the radar.
The strip still shows the earlier value. Confirming a new altitude updates the radar label and makes the change visible.
In the concept, shape, trail and altitude cues helped structure the traffic picture. Colour distinguished incoming flights, flights in the sector, pending hand-offs and warnings. A brief inversion marked a confirmed value change.
The strip carried the same signals. Each direction of flight had its own colour, so a blue and a green strip side by side in the bay showed aircraft roughly heading towards each other.
A new strip waited for an active accept, so none could be forgotten. Warnings came in two levels: orange for a long-term collision course, red to intervene at once.
06 / Model
We built the place where the idea could be discussed.
The team constructed a full-scale, two-person workstation with projected interface surfaces and physical strip stand-ins. Film and model made the concept tangible. They did not turn it into an operational air traffic control system.
What was real: the 1:1 structure, projection, interface design, physical strip models and film. What remained proposed: a functioning E-Ink strip, a finished OLED workstation and use in air traffic control.
Watch the original TESS film
07 / What remains
The question outlived the prototype.
Final presentation in February 2013 with a 1:1 model, a 243-page documentation and a three-minute film ↗. Shown at the HfG semester exhibition, with our own stand at Zukunftspreis Kommunikation 2013 and in regional press (Rems-Zeitung, Schwäbische Post).
Reflection
Our question, what happens to a person’s understanding when a system takes over, is now at the centre of my work on Beyond Chat. What I would do differently: take the finished concept back to controllers. We interviewed them before designing but never tested the result with them.
- Team
- Martha Miosga, Luise Pescheck, Dominik Witzke · equal roles
- Supervision
- Prof. Ralf Dringenberg, Prof. Jens Döring · HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
- References
- Project film, 2013 ↗ · field visits at DFS control centres in Langen, Munich and Karlsruhe