HSI design has been a major part of IFE’s research programme for more than 20 years. ProcSee's features for building innovative and customised objects and displays are essential in this type of work. The ability to freely combine shapes and objects into new complex types of objects and fully control their dynamic behaviour by a powerful and flexible programming language is ProcSee's strongest and most useful feature in this respect. Further, new technology and new features introduced in ProcSee have generated ideas and inspired the creativity among the researchers responsible for the HSI design programme.

Below we present screenshots from four of IFE’s latest projects within the HSI design programme.

Information Rich Displays (IRD)

The purpose of Information Rich Displays is to condensate prevailing information in process displays in such a way that each display format contains more relevant information for the operator. The need for a new approach is in particular based on shortcomings in today's designs related to the key-hole effect, where a display format reveals only a fraction of the whole process. Furthermore, the upcoming introduction of larger off-shore and on-shore operation centres in the oil and gas industry will increase the control room operators' work domain and workload due to the need of operating several processes in parallel. The IRDs aim to meet this increasing workload by providing more relevant information to the operator.

© Design registered by IFE.

The IRD concept includes design of some basic components. The images below present a three-phase separator (to the left) and a pump (to the right). Note how the last minutes history is an integrated part of the components.

© Design registered by IFE.

Task-Based Displays

Task-based displays are displays designed specifically to support an operator in handling an anticipated operational occurrence or accident.

Displays to perform initial checks and obtain an overview of the process' state in specific emergency situations:

Displays to perform emergency procedures. An expert system inserts procedure text and annotates the ordinary process formats online while the operator performs the procedure steps:

Ecological Interfaces

Ecological Interface Design attempts to utilize powerful human perception and action capabilities and support operators' intellectual tasks in ”beyond procedure” situations. The information to be presented in the displays are based upon a Work Domain Analysis of the process, allowing the process to be seen at different levels of abstraction and decomposition. As a consequence, the information content may be different from traditional design and some information may be shown at higher abstraction levels. Information is attempted shown in a manner so that the process situation is easy to understand and react to by the operators. IFE's research is performed in cooperation with the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo.

Function-Oriented Displays

In function-oriented design, a function analysis of the plant is used as the backbone of the information requirements, information presentation and display organization of the HSI. The state of the plant's functions is represented through the displays and the functional hierarchy resulting from the analysis is used for structuring all major elements of the HSI: operating displays, monitoring displays, computerized procedures and alarms.