Perceived Usefulness and Usability of Overview Displays in Nuclear Control Rooms

Overview displays are becoming more common in the nuclear industry, both in digital and hybrid main control rooms. Even though overview displays have been present in the industry for several years, there is still a lack of empirical data on overview displays' implementations, its usefulness, usability and even performance impact for the operating crews. This paper explores whether usability ratings predict perceived usefulness in overview displays. We study connections between overview displays' usability, its reported use, and perceived usefulness and support. This is done through three studies in different control room settings, with different versions of overview displays: a) in a real-world control room with six crews of two operators each in a research reactor main control room, who had long-term experience with an overview display; and b) in a research simulator environment with two crews of four licensed operators each, who experienced complex full-scale scenarios for a week, each crew using a specific overview display version. The operators were overall positive about the overview displays, and the results suggests that usability is a relevant predictor of perceived support. Limitations of the presented studies are also highlighted. Notably, all evaluated displays had a high usability score, thus constraining the variety of the ratings and compromising hypothesis testing in the current samples.

Keywords: Overview displays, Control room, Nuclear industry, Usability, Interface design.

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