Design of Ecological Interface for Nuclear Power Plant Based on Cognitive Work Analysis

Abstract

Nuclear power plant accidents are an important public safety issue, and most accidents occur mainly due to unexpected events of the operator. However, traditional nuclear plant interfaces do not provide operators with the ability to resolve unexpected events. As an interface design method, ecological interface design can improve the situational awareness of operators and is widely used in nuclear power plants and other fields. At the same time, in order to improve the adaptability of the interface structure change, this paper introduces a formative method — Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA). This approach aims to describe the given constraints acting on a complex system from different perspectives and structural levels in order to better show how the system operates, and traditionally consists of five stages: Work Domain Analysis (WDA, which create a set of models that describe how complex systems work and then use those models to guide system design), Control Task Analysis (ConTA, which Build models for known repetitive tasks), Strategy Analysis (StrA, which observe known repetitive activity in more detail), Social Organization & Cooperation Analysis (SOCA, which designed to address team communication and cooperation constraints and boundary conditions), and Worker Competencies Analysis (WCA, which describe the level of cognitive control required by the operator to accomplish different system functional goals and tasks). This article will discuss the framework for the use of these five stages at the ecological interface.