Providing Operator Support During Monitoring for Unanticipated Events Through Ecological Interface Design

Abstract

A full scope simulator study with licensed Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) operators was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of ecological displays in supporting operators with different types of tasks. The results suggest that ecological displays have a marked advantage in supporting operator performance during monitoring for unanticipated events as compared to mimic-based displays. The ecological displays did not support operator performance differently for other types of tasks. These results are encouraging because EID appears to be a design solution for coping with unanticipated events, which have largely been neglected by conventional approaches. The study provides supporting evidence that EID is effective at a scale and level of complexity representative of NPP operations.