Human interface evaluation by simulation

The authors propose a new method to evaluate the human interface design of nuclear power plant equipment from the viewpoint of human error. Their system, called DIAS, is implemented on a workstation and consists of a maintenance personnel model and an equipment interface model. The maintenance personnel model stores the standard maintenance procedures which are represented by the augmented Petri net model. The authors consider the visual field, walking speed and the focal/peripheral working memory in the maintenance personnel model. DIAS analyzes the potential human errors of each task in the simulation results by using the human-error-mechanism knowledge base combined with a quantitative human error rate prediction technique. The equipment interface model can be easily redesigned on the graphical editor, which enables the analyst to evaluate alternative designs. They applied this system to evaluate the interface design of the actual GIS protection relay panels and their layout in the nuclear power plant