Improving Human-System Interface Design Through Human Behavior Assessment in the Control Room of Nuclear Power Plants

Human plays an important role in sophisticated and safety-critical systems such as Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). Digital systems are applied in the control room alongside the development of technology. Operators in the control room of NPPs can interact with the system through traditional consoles as well as computer workstations. In order to evaluate the design of human-system interface, measures can be taken by assessing the task results and human performance. By observing the behaviors of operators, evaluators can identify potential problems of Human-System Interface (HSI) and thus making improvement. This paper briefly summarizes issues of human activities and performance assessment in NPPs, and then discusses the relationship between human behavior and HSI design. It provides some recommendations on interface design based on the observation of human activities in the control room, such as working on traditional panels and workstations, communication, and auxiliary activities. Discussions are then made on the objectives of evaluation and conditions of HSI evaluation in China nuclear industry. The corresponding experiences can be generalized to human-system interface design in other systems.