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The Bad screen is less than satisfactory. The layout is poor, the plant representation isn't logical and the screen layout makes it difficult to locate the data. Poor selection of colours, excessive use of capitals in a serif font and repetitive use of units with all data values, makes this a really difficult screen to read - especially at a glance or from a distance. The display lacks any clear navigation routes to access other pages. More seriously, the display lacks any form of alarm indication.
Introduction
All modern control room systems use visual displays to convey information to plant operators; often it is the primary source of operational data. The clarity of these displays can determine how well the plant is run; lack of information can result in poor operational efficiency, excessive wear and tear and, in extreme cases, failure to see a problem may be dangerous. Display clarity becomes doubly important when multiple VDUs compete for an operators attention especially when different displays have different purposes and are designed by different vendors to differing standards. Often by engineers who have no training in design and little experience of working in control rooms. Remember also that whilst the designer will sit close up in front of the screen, in use control-room VDUs will be viewed at distance along a desk or even across the room. Whilst detail will be lost, the presence of a plant problem should be evident at a distance even if the operator has left his spectacles at home! Our objective here is to provide some guidelines for screen design so that common pitfalls can be avoided and the customer gets user-friendly displays, which are legible, useful and fit for purpose. Display pages need to be clear, easy to use and legible across a control desk. Here's a quick summary:
Backgrounds - use muted tones light grey is good. Shadowing is a recommended method for subdividing a display. Background graphics should use muted tones, alarm colours should be avoided. Use black outlines to highlight objects. Text use a standard font, which will be available on all PCs. Use San serif fonts for on-screen clarity e.g. Arial. Text size needs to be large enough to read at a distance e.g. Arial 16. More detailed text should be added as pop-up windows or tool-tips.
Dynamic data should be positioned on scanned areas of the screen; i.e. across the top, centrally and lower right. Data should be grouped logically. Data values should be clear & units should be obvious (but not repeated with every value). Data Resolution should be appropriate to use, avoid too many decimal values; 546.45 C is pointless and unclear. If red & green are used for Running & Stopped indications, add text to make it clear. Plant status indication must not rely solely upon colour changes.
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System Alarm status should be visible on all displays. Alarm status should be displayed across the top of the display. Alarm colours will follow the convention: Red = alarm, Yellow = warning, green = status OK. For Alarms - use additional non-colour dependent indications; position, text, etc. Flashing of unaccepted alarms and automatic screen switching on alarm should be avoided. Sounds are a good method for highlighting and prioritising alarms.
Colour combinations should be chosen with care and use appropriate colours and contrasts. Navigation buttons should be obvious and large enough to select quickly. Next Screen button should be ideally placed at the lower right side of the screen. A Home / Overview button should appear on each screen (ideally lower left corner). Other navigation buttons are best placed at the bottom of screen. Control buttons must invoke a confirm action dialog box. All pages must have a consistent look & feel. Navigation buttons should be in the same place. Everything should line up.
Screen Layout
Before designing any screen it is useful to understand how a user will use it. Generally, users will scan a screen in the same way as they would scan a page in a magazine, which in the west means from the top left corner to the right and reading down the screen. Unlike a book, we have no lines to guide us, so we usually only do 2 or 3 incomplete scans of the screen as suggested in example below.
In taking this into account, the display designer should ensure that important items should be on the scan line. Alarms should therefore be across the top of the page, key data in centre right and maybe buttons and controls on the lower right. Whilst supporting graphics and the company logo are better placed on the lower left of the screen.
Colour Issues
Before deciding what to put on a display it is necessary to have some understanding of how colour can be used. Colour is a powerful tool for enhancing visibility of key data. However excessive use of colour can make a page confusing or overwhelming. On-screen colours are created from 3 primary colours; Red, Green & Blue and the secondary colours; Cyan, Magenta and Yellow are created from pairs of primary colours. Colour Wheel A colour wheel is often used to demonstrate the relationship between colours. Example:
Complementary contrast is created by positioning a secondary colour with the primary colour from the opposite side of the wheel. Example:
Whilst useful to create impact, using the colours together can make it difficult for the eye to focus. Contrast of hue created from pairs of adjacent colours can be more subtle, with pairs of secondary colours (cyan, yellow, magenta) producing higher contrasts than pairs of primary colours (red, green, blue). Example:
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Selecting Suitable Display Colours The eye senses primary colours via the cones, which are sensitive to red, green or blue light, as there are fewer blue cones then our perception of blue is less. This is why thin blue lines are more difficult to see. Blue should be avoided for small display objects however blue does make a good background colour. In selecting colours for a screen it is essential to agree colours for plant status and alarms. The preferred colour convention, following the standard for safety signs (BS 5378) defines: Red = stop, prohibition, danger Yellow = caution, risk of danger Green = safe condition Blue = mandatory action. Any screen design should ensure that these key safety colours are clearly visible on the VDU and that these colours are not overused for other purposes. Large blocks of primary colours, e.g. red, should be avoided because they will cause complimentary colour image retention on the retina. Try it for yourself; if you look at an area of bright red then look at a white wall you will see the same image in green. Designers also need to be aware that 1 in 12 men have some degree of colour blindness. This normally means that there is some confusion in the perception of reds and greens (also yellows, oranges, & browns) which mean that screen designs should not solely rely on colour to indicate plant condition. Background Colours Whilst black and white provide good colour contrast for text they produce too much glare and do not provide a good background for a range of colours. Muted tones are best for backgrounds, greys, browns and blues; these provide a good contrast for the brighter colours used for important dynamic data, such as red, yellow, green, magenta or white. Different background colours can sometimes be used to good effect to immediately identify groups of screens. For example, light grey may be used for the main plant, very light brown for the oil tank farm, light blue for the water plant. The use of subtle shading to create the illusion on raising or lowering a section of the display can be used with great effect to differentiate areas of the display.
Static Pictures
Screen displays often include a representation of the process plant. When well done, these can often help the operator to immediately visualise the plant and the location of the measurements. However too much detail can clutter the display and make it difficult to see the important dynamic data, so keep it simple. Muted tones are best used for plant representations. Large areas of strong colours will detract from important dynamic data. A good method to make items stand out is to outline the object in black because the eye can easily see a black shape. Photographs of the plant are sometimes used as backgrounds; often these photographs are poorly lit and invariably contain too much detail and produce very cluttered backgrounds with little opportunity to optimise colour contrasts. Photographs should only be used in exceptional circumstances and should be of good quality. Sometimes background pictures can be enhanced by the use of graphics from a wide range of graphical object libraries. To add a series of 3D cylindrical tanks in shades of grey, can make a display instantly identifiable, but adding 3D images of pipes, pumps, valves, etc. adds little and will make the display too cluttered. The temptation to create realism in a background should be avoided, unless you are especially gifted. It is virtually impossible to create good perspective, scale and shading. It will take a long time to produce and the results will be disappointing. Realism is best avoided.
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Text, and especially data values, should be grouped in areas of the screen. Randomly distributing data values around a picture makes it difficult to scan for data values. If you want the user to compare data values, then put them next to each other in a table. If you have several tables with the same data types, e.g. temperature, pressure, speed; ensure that the data is presented in the same order in each table. Care should be taken with units. It is important to know that pressure is displayed in millibars but writing mBar next to every measurement is unnecessary and clutters the display. Avoid unnecessary decimal places. The displayed Data Resolution should be appropriate to use; 546.45 C is pointless and difficult to read, (the accuracy of measurement is probably limited to +/- 2C). Subtle changes in background relief can often be used to enhance the presentation of text and data. If you choose to include this in your design, it is important to ensure that you are consistent.
Summary of Recommendations
There are no absolutes when designing HMI displays, and everyone will have their own preferences. We hope that in preparing this paper, many of the common failures can be avoided. Whatever style you adopt when designing an HMI display, it most important that the style should be followed throughout the suite of displays. Each display should have the same look and feel; navigation buttons should be in the same place and everything should line up. Display pages need to be clear, easy to use and legible across a control desk:
Hexatec have over 20 years experience developing SCADA software and offer a range of advanced SCADA solutions.
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