Usability styles of the plant safety monitoring and assesment system, PLASMA

Development of the PLASMA (Plant Safety Monitoring and Assessment) system was started in 1998 in the framework of an international Research and Development project supported by OECD/NEA. The objective of this project was to develop an on-line information system to support VVER reactor operators during the execution of symptom-based Emergency Operating Procedures (EOPs), with the Paks NPP in Hungary as the target plant. In connection with the installation of the PLASMA system at Paks NPP it was decided to perform a usability study of the system through interviewing NPP operators after they had completed a short training course on the PLASMA system and used it during a validation and training session in the training simulator at Paks. This report describes the basic process used in preparations and execution of the usability studies, including methods for gathering information and analysis of the findings from the validation. As a general conclusion from the usability studies it can be stated that the PLASMA system received very favourable ratings from the operators. User satisfaction was generally rated highly and comments from operators were positive. This is particularly encouraging considering the relatively short introduction and experience that the operators had with the system at the time of the-evaluation. (Author)