215 NUCLEAR ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, VOL.41 NO.3 APRIL 2009 LESSONS LEARNED FROM HALDEN PROJECT RESEARCH ON HUMAN SYSTEM INTERFACES ALF OVE BRASETH * , CHRISTER NIHLWING, HÅKAN SVENGREN, ØYSTEIN VELAND, LARS HURLEN and JON KVALEM Institute for Energy Technology, OECD Halden Reactor Project P.O.Box 173, NO-1751 Halden, Norway * Corresponding author. E-mail : alfob@hrp.no Received March 31, 2009 1. INTRODUCTION Over the last years parts of the nuclear industry has moved towards replacing the traditional, panel-based interfaces with computerized operation environments. Such decisions are motivated by aspects such as future maintenance problems and costs and upgrade flexibility, and not so much by human performance issues. In general, today’s computerized control rooms consist of P&ID- based process displays, backed up with traditional trend and alarm systems. There is, however, a general consensus that there is a great potential for improvement with regards to how information is being presented in such systems. The goal of the Halden Project is to provide the nuclear industry, i.e. utilities and vendors, with knowledge and ideas for improving information presentation in hybrid or fully computerized control rooms. This goal is being met by designing prototypes which is implemented in full- scope nuclear simulators, evaluating them in user tests and larger-scale experiments in HAMMLAB (Halden Man-Machine Laboratory), and providing lessons learned, design recommendations and technical basis for guidelines to the industry. This paper addresses challenges of computerized interfaces, and how lessons learned from the HSI research of the Halden Project contributes to solving some of these challenges. 2. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN COMPUTERIZED HUMAN SYSTEM INTERFACES The present generation of computerized interfaces within the nuclear industry is more or less screen-based replicas of the traditional mimic-based hard-panelled interfaces. Although a natural first step, this approach introduces new challenges from a human factors perspective. It also fails to take advantage of the new possibilities the new digital medium offers, see Fig. 1. Some of the known challenges with present computerized HSIs are: The “key-hole effect”: In traditional control rooms the interface covers a large part of the room’s walls and desks. In computerized environments the operator’s interface is located on a number of computer screens. The result is that operators often loose overview of the complete process. The interface fails to support the behaviour of “stepping back” to get the “big picture”, focusing exclusively on smaller parts of the process, screen by screen, as through a key-hole [1]. Interface management issues : As the interface is distributed over many displays limited in size, operators will have to navigate through them to access the information they are looking for. The display shown on each screen is chosen by the operator, e.g. mimic- based displays, trends, alarm systems, etc. While this flexibility offers some advantages, studies have shown that operators often get lost, experiencing a hard time managing screens and finding the information they are particularly looking for and thus reducing operator performance [2]. Visual patterns disappear: Key features of traditional Innovative Human System Interfaces (HSIs) has been a major topic of research of the international Halden Reactor Project (HRP) for many years. Different design concepts have been addressed and prototypes have been implemented and evaluated in the experimental control room facility of HRP. Many of the concepts go far beyond traditional P&ID type displays, and utilize advanced computer graphics and animations. The paper briefly describes some of the concepts, their advantages and disadvantages experienced through evaluations and feedback from users. KEYWORDS : Human System Interfaces, Display Design, Process Control Displays