User-centered standardization of industrial process control user interfaces

This article shows how usability engineering methods-presented in Burmester, Komischke, and Wust (this issue)-were successfully applied to user-interface design in industrial process control. The goal of the research was to optimize the work of both designers (automation engineers) and end users (operators) of process control systems. Expert interviews and task analyses in different sectors were carried out. For the first time operator core sequences were identified in the field and across sectors. For these common activities, software building blocks were conceptually specified and a prototype was evaluated iteratively in the field using demonstrations, focused interviews, usability tests, and questionnaires.