{"schema_version":1,"assessment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_opportunity320_20260801","source_experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"negative_space_design__earth_sciences","archetype_slug":"negative_space_design","domain_slug":"earth_sciences","title":"Reversible protected corridors for crowded geoscience maps","opportunity_summary":"Temporarily suppress task-nonessential overlays within visibly marked corridors around selected geological traces or intersections, while preserving source data, designated essential layers, provenance, and immediate restoration. The proposal claims improved interpretation accuracy relative to both fully populated maps and whole-map restyling, but the prevalence of consequential crowding and the intervention effect remain unverified.","adopter_authorizer":"A geological map-data steward or digital-viewer owner can authorize a read-only study and define nonsuppressible layers; participating geoscientists control temporary suppression. Operational use would require separate authorization and is excluded from the proposed first step.","scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":3,"rationale":"Avoiding missed or incorrect fault, contact, fold, and cross-cutting-relation interpretations could matter, especially for downstream products, but neither the frequency of such errors nor the magnitude of improvement is established in the sealed candidate."},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":2,"rationale":"The candidate names interpreters, cartographers, viewer maintainers, and data stewards, but supplies no evidence that they request protected corridors, consider current controls inadequate, or would prioritize adoption."},"incremental_advantage":{"score":3,"rationale":"Bounded local suppression could isolate geometry more directly than zooming, whole-layer toggling, or global restyling while retaining surrounding context, but it may instead hide decisive evidence and has no demonstrated net accuracy advantage."},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"The combination of scale-aware protected corridors, explicit suppression indicators, nonsuppressible layers, and immediate restoration is distinguishable within the stated comparison set, but prior art is unsearched and real-world distinctiveness cannot be inferred."},"technical_implementability":{"score":4,"rationale":"The intervention is a reversible display-layer operation on existing vector, raster, and annotation maps, with source data unchanged. Implementability is limited by underspecified corridor generation, layer-eligibility rules, restoration behavior, and accessibility indicators."},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":4,"rationale":"The candidate identifies a data steward to set suppression limits and participating geoscientists to control test views, with operational decisions excluded. Broader production authority and downstream governance are not specified."},"evidence_readiness":{"score":4,"rationale":"A read-only crossover study can compare the ordinary map, the restyled-all-layers rival, and protected corridors using accuracy and missing-context outcomes. Corridor construction, task sampling, eligibility rules, and analysis criteria still require preregistration."},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":3,"rationale":"Immediate restoration, visible absence labels, nonsuppressible safety-critical layers, unchanged source data, and explicit halt conditions provide meaningful safeguards, but users may still confuse suppression with geological absence or lose interpretation-changing context."},"scalability":{"score":3,"rationale":"A viewer-level display feature could be reused across many maps, but heterogeneous symbology, scale behavior, feature classes, accessibility needs, steward policies, and automation bias may require substantial map-specific validation."}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Specify and prototype a read-only corridor treatment, select matched previously interpreted excerpts, preregister a small consenting crossover study, and analyze accuracy, time, missing-context, and false-no-data outcomes across three viewing conditions.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["A suitable viewer or lightweight study interface can be modified without rebuilding the mapping stack.","Previously interpreted excerpts and qualified participants are available without major licensing or recruitment expense.","The study remains small and does not support operational decisions."]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Engineer a production-quality feature for one digital geological-map viewer, including scale-aware corridor behavior, layer eligibility controls, restoration guarantees, visible state indicators, keyboard and visual accessibility, logging, testing, and steward configuration.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["The existing viewer exposes layer and rendering controls needed for bounded suppression.","Deployment covers one organization and viewer rather than multiple legacy platforms.","No source-data conversion or new geological mapping is required."]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Validate representative tasks and feature classes, complete accessibility and safety review, establish governance for nonsuppressible layers, train users, instrument audits, support rollout, and evaluate post-launch errors for one institutional production environment.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Operational use is authorized only after the read-only evidence stage.","Hazard, permitting, engineering, warning, and emergency workflows remain excluded until separately validated.","Integration does not require replacement of the underlying map platform."]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Maintain rendering and accessibility behavior, update layer policies, monitor suppression-related errors, support users, audit logs, and revalidate the feature when map schemas or viewer software change.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["One institution operates the feature in an existing viewer.","Recurring work includes part-time engineering, stewardship, support, and evaluation rather than a dedicated large team.","Material expansion into safety-critical workflows would require additional resources outside this band."]}},"research_burden":"MODERATE","earliest_credible_horizon":"3_TO_12_MONTHS","pipeline_gates":{"recognizable_externally_supportable_problem":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The candidate describes observable crowding, excessive navigation, and interpretation errors and supplies a problem falsifier, but it explicitly provides no evidence that consequential crowding is prevalent or predicts errors on representative tasks."},"identifiable_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"The map-data steward is identified as the authority over suppressible layers, participating geoscientists control temporary suppression, and viewer maintainers are identifiable implementation actors."},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The proposal claims that protected corridors improve relation accuracy over both the ordinary fully populated map and global restyling without increasing missing-context errors."},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"A small, consenting, read-only crossover study on matched, previously interpreted excerpts is bounded and includes baseline, nearest-rival, and intervention comparisons with explicit falsifiers."},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"Source data remain unchanged, designated provenance, uncertainty, orientation, scale, and safety-critical layers are nonsuppressible, operational decisions are excluded, and immediate restoration plus halt conditions are specified."},"implementation_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The candidate identifies the principal implementation components but contains no resource estimate, installed-platform details, integration constraints, participant availability, or governance burden; only broad assumption-dependent bands can be assigned closed-book."}},"blocking_evidence":["Whether focal geological geometry is materially crowded at normal working scales on representative tasks.","Whether crowding predicts interpretation time or error relative to excerpts with fewer competing overlays.","Whether protected corridors outperform both the ordinary view and the restyled-all-layers rival on relation accuracy.","Whether any accuracy or speed gain occurs without increased missing-context, false-no-data, or overconfidence errors.","Whether preregistered corridor-construction and layer-eligibility rules are reproducible and avoid privileging particular feature classes or mapping conventions.","Whether suppression indicators and controls remain understandable and operable for keyboard, low-vision, and color-vision-diverse users."],"next_evidence_step":"Preregister a small read-only crossover study using matched, previously interpreted excerpts spanning higher- and lower-crowding conditions. Compare ordinary styling, restyled-all-layers, and reversible protected corridors on blinded relation accuracy, completion time, missing-context errors, and false-no-data interpretations; stop advancement if crowding does not predict baseline error or if corridors fail to improve accuracy over both comparators without increasing either error class.","research_questions":["How often do overlays materially crowd focal faults, contacts, folds, or intersections at actual working scales?","Does measured crowding predict interpretation error or time after accounting for task and interpreter differences?","Which overlays can be classified as task-nonessential using rules fixed before outcome measurement?","How sensitive are results to corridor width, scale behavior, feature class, and map symbology?","Do visible boundaries and absence labels prevent users from interpreting suppressed content as absent or unmapped data?","Are benefits and harms consistent across expertise levels and accessibility needs?","Can every permitted suppression state be restored immediately and audited reliably?","What prior systems or practices already implement equivalent local, reversible suppression?","Would data stewards and viewer owners authorize and maintain the feature if the accuracy criterion is met?"] ,"recommendation":"VALIDATE_PROBLEM_FIRST","uncertainty_constraints":["Closed-book assessment cannot establish problem prevalence, stakeholder demand, prior art, market size, realized impact, or exact cost.","The proposed benefit is a hypothesis; structural coherence and a plausible perceptual mechanism are not evidence of improved interpretation.","The nearest-rival comparison is specified by the candidate but is not known to represent all existing alternatives.","Cost bands assume one institutional viewer and exclude separately authorized safety-critical operational use.","Scale-aware corridor generation, task-nonessential layer selection, sampling, and analysis rules are not yet operationally specified.","Blank space can itself signify geological absence, incomplete coverage, or processing failure, making suppression-state comprehension a central constraint."],"closed_book_prior_art_boundary":"Prior art is unsearched and world novelty is unmeasured. This assessment recognizes only the candidate's stated distinction from ordinary navigation, whole-layer toggling, and global restyling; it makes no claim that protected, reversible local suppression is novel, rare, unavailable, or commercially distinctive."}