Structured functional display for improved human-machine communication in complex dynamic systems

This paper proposes a new approach to the design of information provision system with more reliance on human capability of situation comprehension and pattern recognition. We presume that human operators of a potentially hazardous artifact are well-trained and motivated enough to manage even the unanticipated events if states of safety-critical components are provided in macroscopic (global) manner with modest rather than detailed accuracy. We also pay more emphasis on provision of information about time-evolution of the events as well as that of component states. We analytically compared the amount and quality of available information with the conventional display modes based on digital and analog signals allocated to relevant locations of plant's simulated display. Through empirical evaluations, we conclude that the proposed scheme is worthwhile to be studied with further expanded scale.