Applying the control adaptation method to a real-world system: hydropower system example

ABSTRACT

This paper presents part of a project aimed at evaluating ecological interfaces in a real world complex system -a hydropower system. We investigate whether an advanced measurement method---here called the control adaptation method (CAM)---can be extended to evaluate how effectively a human operator is coupled to a complex process control environment. So far the CAM has been successfully applied to the simple, DURESS II microworld. In this paper we attempt to extend the CAM to a real-world complex control environment---a hydropower system operating in a deregulated electricity market. We encounter challenges in transferring the CAM to this more complex work domain. Nonetheless, we provide an approximation to the original methodology that should let us measure the effectiveness of ecological displays for hydropower systems. Our findings may generalise to the evaluation of ecological interfaces in other real-world systems.

References

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Index Terms

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)

    • HCI design and evaluation methods