Human factors issues related to expert systems for electric power plant control rooms

The primary purpose of expert systems is to represent the knowledge of experts and make the expertise available to the human so that it can contribute to improved performance. In order to achieve this objective, human factors principles must be incorporated into the design. Two surveys oriented towards identifying the human factors issues related to expert systems were conducted. This paper describes the results from those surveys. It discusses the human factors issues under four main categories, the knowledge base of the expert system, the human-expert system interface, organizational support, and related topics (e.g., training, workload, and performance under stress). 21 refs.