Does ecological interface design scale up to industrial plants?

The purpose of this research was to determine how the principles of ecological interface design (EID) could be applied to systems that are larger in scale than those that had been previously used as testbeds for evaluating EID. The focus of this initial feasibility study was the feedwater subsystem of Asea Brown Boveri´s (ABB´s) conventional power plant simulator. The primary outcome of this research is a prototype interface for the feedwater subsystem that is based on the EID framework. The main findings of this study are: a) a proof of concept showing that the principles of EID can be meaningfully applied to a larger-scale design problem representative of those found in industry; b) EID needs to be supplemented by more specific interface design principles; and c) it is possible to effectively integrate EID with these other design principles. Therefore, EID seems to be a viable candidate for the design of advanced computer interfaces for complex industrial plants