Communication

One of the areas of interest from our user research is asynchronous informal communication between operators. Typically, this takes the form of sticky notes left for the next shift of operators. Little to no support of this type of communication exists in the current DeltaV Operate product. Communication between the operators is necessary to provide situation awareness and keep plant systems under control.

Trend & Events Display

The Trends & Events display offers several features, including a full-view of trends and virtual sticky notes.

The full-view of trends is similar to functionality that exists in related products, in which trends are shown in a devoted window. The key advantage to our design is a seamless integration with the rest of the operator console, enabling easy navigation between plant diagrams, events, and trends.

We consider the following to be some of the essential capabilities of the full-view feature: quick switching between history and current plant activity; arbitrary zooming within a trend plot; overlaying multiple trend plots to support comparative analysis; and easy addition of trend plots by dragging a component from the operator screen into the trend window.

Operator-Defined Trend Groups

Operators set which component trends they want to view together. Buttons at the top of the screen allow one-click access to switch views.

Trend Group Buttons

Message and Alarm Lists

Messages List

To address communication problems identified during user research, we propose the addition of a message list to allow operators to inform their shift replacements of any concerns and increase situation awareness. The time, author, and type of message is included in the list, along with a snippet of the message.

In addition, to aid operators in understanding what took place during a previous shift, our design includes an alarm list. Alarms are color-coded based on priority from the DeltaV Operate view. Time, type, and alarm level are included in the list, along with a short description of the alarm cause. Both the message and alarm lists are linked to respective trend lines.

Color-coded alarm and message roll-overs

Alarms and messages are included in icons along trend lines. Hovering over an icon will display a message and clicking one will keep it in view. Evaluation with three DeltaV operators showed that our design of alarm tracking and message display along trend lines might fulfill the user need for situation awareness. Further evaluation is necessary to determine whether this design reduces time spent evaluating the status of the system at the beginning of a shift.

Stickies attached to Components

Another method for increasing situation awareness among operators is to integrate virtual sticky notes into regular operator overview screens. When a component has a sticky attached to it, an indicator appears. The indicator is highlighted when stickies are being displayed, and dimmed (grey) when they are not. In this design, stickies are only visible for one component at a time. Clicking an indicator for a particular component hides all other stickies. We also added an indicator for “general” stickies that are not attached to a component.

The button for adding new stickies has a mini sticky on it. New stickies appear near the button that creates them. Ideally one should be able to click and drag out of the add button and have a sticky appear wherever one releases the drag.

Dragging an unattached sticky over a component causes the sticky to change into a small icon next to the mouse cursor. This icon indicates that this sticky can be attached to the component under the mouse cursor. The component highlights to make it clear to which component the sticky will be added.