Fusion Reactor Overview Screen
Research
Human Factors
UX Design
Information Architecture
Context
ITER is a once in a generation project. Collaboratively funded by 35 countries, it is the next step in humanity’s path to clean fusion energy. With its site in the south of France, the scale of the project is immense. 18 primary systems and over 100 secondary systems support the core function of the tokamak machine - to create a controlled environment 10x hotter than the sun and prove that energy can be reliably drawn from fusing atoms.
Brief
Mima was subcontracted by VTT to complete 3 workstreams:
A review of the UX/HMI of operator control system screens.
Design and layout of the 46m wide main control room accommodating over 120 operators.
Content strategy and design of the 27m wide overview screen, and a smaller screen in the temporary commissioning control room.
The overview screen needed to provide a breadth of information: values representing the status of the main and secondary systems, real time data and live video feeds, all while changing based on operating states and contexts. Our purpose on the project was to ensure the final designs and the process taken to achieve them were purely human-centred.
Requirement gathering notes from the extensive interview process
Activities
Of course, we are not nuclear fusion engineers, so the process began with a phase of deep investigation. We conducted over a dozen interviews with ITER staff that would be situated in the temporary control room and future team leaders in the main control room. We learnt about the system they would be in charge of, its core parameters, the information they needed from others and the information others needed from them.
In parallel, the team facilitated a long series of workshops, inviting stakeholders from different groups each time, to establish the organisational makeup of the operating groups, hierarchy of control, and teams that communicate the most. The workshops were designed to garner insights that would be useful for the design of the control room itself as well as the overview screen design.
Throughout the process, we established a group of ITER champions, who would become our core user group that helped to refine our findings and turn them into suitable design strategy. The project was highly iterative, with interim reports being produced to mark key learnings over time and how they changed.
By combining our gathered user requirements, we formulated wireframes for interface elements of the overview screen. We continually involved users, such as by bringing our wireframes into Miro to co-design several content placement concepts. Over time, we refined the wireframes into low-fi prototypes, then med-fi then high-fi.
I personally created a legibility calculator to ensure the text and content scaling was suitable across the room, and defined the content to be presented on supporting overview screens also placed around the room, nearer to specific teams.
The process to ensure information was not duplicated, while providing the right depth of information for the right observers was long and arduous, but highly rewarding.
A collection of workshop outputs, including placement strategy and room layout links
Outcomes
The project concluded with a refined screen UX, a thorough control room design, and a prototype overview screen design. The work streams were handed over with a design specification pack, including functionality important for operational success, an accessible colour palette for those with colour-blindness, information highlighting, alarms, and animated graphics.
To sign off all work streams, the team built a 3D model of the control room and overview screen. We hosted virtual meeting which allowed stakeholders to fly through the model together. This was a brilliant exercise that was highly appreciated by the client, as their operators were able to position themselves at their future workstations and see the information they would use on the overview screen.
The longevity of the project was awe inspiring. We spoke to engineers who had crafted their careers to be perfect for the role of controller their specific sub-system in the plant. With ‘first fire’ not due until 2026, you could sense the stakeholders were in it for the long-haul.