title: Procedure and information displays in advanced nuclear control rooms: experimental evaluation of an integrated design.
abstract: In the main control rooms of nuclear power plants, operators frequently have to switch between procedure displays and system information displays. In this study, we proposed an operation-unit-based integrated design, which combines the two displays to facilitate the synthesis of information. We grouped actions that complete a single goal into operation units and showed these operation units on the displays of system states. In addition, we used different levels of visual salience to highlight the current unit and provided a list of execution history records. A laboratory experiment, with 42 students performing a simulated procedure to deal with unexpected high pressuriser level, was conducted to compare this design against an action-based integrated design and the existing separated-displays design. The results indicate that our operation-unit-based integrated design yields the best performance in terms of time and completion rate and helped more participants to detect unexpected system failures. Practitioner Summary: In current nuclear control rooms, operators frequently have to switch between procedure and system information displays. We developed an integrated design that incorporates procedure information into system displays. A laboratory study showed that the proposed design significantly improved participants' performance and increased the probability of detecting unexpected system failures.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Industrial Engineering , Tsinghua University , Beijing , P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: a Department of Industrial Engineering , Tsinghua University , Beijing , P.R. China.
authors.forename: Qin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: b Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research & Design Ins , Shanghai , P.R. China.
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: a Department of Industrial Engineering , Tsinghua University , Beijing , P.R. China.
authors.forename: Zhizhong
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9571-9311
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: b Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research & Design Ins , Shanghai , P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yufan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002681:China; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003626:Data Display; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055848:Nuclear Power Plants; D013334:Students; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014495:Universities; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D000066477:Work Performance; D016526:Workload / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Computerised procedures; advanced control rooms; information displays; integrated displays; situation awareness