Guiding operators' attention with the help of a visual aid system

In the cutting age of industrial 4.0, automation has developed rapidly in all aspects. The emergence of the modern industrial control room has provided a new horizon to the large operation. However, the problem facing the operators is too many screens that they need to monitor at the same time which could result in fatal mistakes such as missing important alerts or failing to act on important information. With that being said, this thesis explores the possibilities of developing a visual aid system to help guide operators’ attention. With the knowledge gained from a literature review and previous efforts from ABB, a visual aid system has been developed with implementations such as unreadable screen and blinking cue guiding the operators’ attention. An experiment to evaluate the solution has also been designed and conducted with 29 participants. Both quantitative data and qualitative data have been collected and analyzed. The results suggest a strong benefit in using such a visual aid to help guide operators’ attention