Safety parameter display performance in a computer simulated PWR

Configural Display is a way to convey a data set without showing their parameters, by combining them in a geometrical form, in which its size and shape show status-at-a-glance information for operators, fully supporting what is know as an “emergent feature”. This paper aims to quantify an actual improvement in operator's performance when using this display as a Safety Parameter Display (SPD), compared to a conventional digital Man-Machine Interface (MMI). This was performed by means of a cognitive task-analysis with nuclear operators being trained on a computer-based PWR simulator.