Reducing cognitive workload of a computer-based procedure system

The use of procedure systems is an important safety management strategy in coping with emergency or abnormal situations in a process control system. With the digitalization trend in these complex and large-scale systems, most aspects of a process control system are also computerized. In addition to the primary tasks, operators now have to do extra secondary tasks when using the computerized systems. In this research, three design features aimed to reduce the cognitive workload are evaluated on our research platform, SimCBP and SimPlant. These two systems work in tandem to simulate a Computer-Based Procedure (CBP) system and a simplified nuclear power plant. From the results of the experiments, the design of embedded controls/parameters is found to be efficient but its counterpart has implications for the design of training materials. Navigation aid, although not statistically significant, is important because of the subjective responses and the need of cross-referencing. The simplified flowchart display format, like other researches on the use of this format, revealed mixed results. Implications and directions for future studies are also proposed.