ABSTRACT
The work presented in the following is the result of a study performed within the sensemaking in safety-critical situations research project supported by the Norwegian Research Council and industry partners Human Factors in Control forum and Kongsberg Maritime, focusing on human–machine interfaces. Accidents and near-misses reports indicate that the sensemaking of DPOs is always successful. As in most other complex, fast-paced, safety-critical environments, DPOs often face significant challenges when trying to get a proper overview and make sense of the situations they find themselves in. Alarms seem to be an issue that is particularly challenging for DPOs, either because there are too many alarms being announced in a short period of time, or that alarms or warnings that should have been announced were, that they were properly recognized or clearly understood. Based on the lessons learned from overview display design in the nuclear and petroleum domain, mock-ups were made to illustrate how the display could behave during different circumstances.
