ASM ® Consortium White Paper Operator Interface Requirements : Going Beyond the Obvious to Achieve Excellence

1 Abstract There are several process industry-related guidelines and standards on how to best display information and support actions for the console operator. The Abnormal Situation Management (ASM®) Consortium also has an extensive guideline document on how to design effective displays for the console operator. While these guidelines and standards are effective at indicating good presentation practices, very little guidance is given regarding the selection of appropriate display content or display function. While not their primary function, plant P&ID's and associated control narratives have traditionally been assumed to form an appropriate basis for selecting display content and functionality. This is despite the inadequate coverage of operator needs in areas such as control building layout, control room layout and the console workspace itself which includes interface elements such as communication devices, switches and indicators, and applications on business PCs. A theme of this paper is to go beyond the obvious sources to understand all of the console operators interface needs necessary to effectively support their work activities. Going beyond the obvious applies to both what is considered the operator interface and the sources used to determine requirements. To identify all information and tools that support the activities of today's console operator, a designer should consider at least four sources of interface design requirements: • collaboration and communication requirements within the operations team; and between the operations team and other supporting departments • critical information and control actions to support crucial procedural operations • critical information and control actions to support monitoring and control strategies common to the team of console operators • equipment limits, operating envelopes, and functional relations between critical process variables to support more effective situation awareness This paper introduces four methods from the field of human factors engineering, each of which is best suited for identifying interface design requirements for one of the four sources above. These methods were identified because of their effectiveness in coverage of the interface design requirements as well as their tractable nature when using the methods. Because development teams often have limited time and resources, this paper provides guidance on which methods might be most useful for various kinds of design projects. In the case of operator graphic displays for example, guidance is provided on specific methods to use when designing overview displays versus equipment details versus task-based displays.