Skip to main content

Questioning, exploring, narrating and playing in the control room to maintain system safety

Cognition, Technology & Work volume 11, Article number: 279 (2009) Cite this article

Abstract

Systems whose design is primarily aimed at ensuring efficient, effective and safe working, such as control rooms, have traditionally been evaluated in terms of criteria that correspond directly to those values: functional correctness, time to complete tasks, etc. This paper reports on a study of control room working that identified other factors that contributed directly to overall system safety. These factors included the ability of staff to manage uncertainty, to learn in an exploratory way, to reflect on their actions, and to engage in problem-solving that has many of the hallmarks of playing puzzles which, in turn, supports exploratory learning. These factors, while currently difficult to measure or explicitly design for, must be recognized and valued in design.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

References

  • Beyer H, Holtzblatt K (1998) Contextual design. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco

    Google Scholar 

  • Blandford A, Wong W (2004) Situation awareness in emergency medical dispatch international. J Human Comput Stud 61(4):421–452

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown E, Cairns P (2004) A grounded investigation of immersion in games. In: ACM conf. on human factors in computing systems, CHI 2004, ACM Press, pp 1297–1300

  • Charmaz K (2006) Constructing grounded theory. Sage, Beverly Hills

    Google Scholar 

  • Costea B, Crump N, Holm J (2005) Dionysus at work? The ethos of play and the ethos of management. Cult Organ 11(2):139–151

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Csikszentmihalyi M (1990) Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. Harper and Row, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Furniss D, Blandford A (2006) Understanding emergency medical dispatch in terms of distributed cognition: a case study. Ergon J 49(12/13):1174–1203

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garbis C (2002) Exploring the openness of cognitive artifacts in cooperative process management. Cogn Tech Work 4:9–21

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garris R, Ahlers R, Driskell J (2002) Games, motivation and learning: a research and practice model. Simul Gaming 33:44–467

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heath C, Luff P (1992) Collaboration and control: crisis management and multimedia technology in London underground line control rooms. Comput Supported Coop Work 1:69–94

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hollan JD, Hutchins EL, Kirsh D (2000) Distributed cognition: toward a new foundation for human-computer interaction research. ACM Trans CHI 7(2):174–196

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollnagel E (1998) Cognitive reliability and error analysis method (CREAM). Elsevier Science, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollnagel E (2005) Human reliability assessment in context. Nucl Eng Technol 37(2):159–166

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollnagel E, Woods DD, Leveson N (eds) (2006) Resilience engineering: concepts and precepts. Ashgate, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutchins E (1995) Cognition in the wild. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Kauppi A, Wikström J, Sandblad B, Andersson A (2006) Future train traffic control: control by re-planning. Cogn Technol Work 8:50–56

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kilgore D (2001) Critical and postmodern perspectives on adult learning. New Dir Adult Contin Educ 89:53–61

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luff P, Heath C (2000) The collaborative production of computer commands in command and control International. J Human Comput Stud 52(4):669–699

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy J, Wright P (2004) Technology as experience. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Pledger S, Horbury C, Bourne A (2005) Human factors in LUL—history, progress and future. In: Wilson J, Norris B, Clarke T, Mills A (eds) Rail human factors: supporting the integrated railway. Ashgate, Hampshire, pp 497–507

    Google Scholar 

  • Reason J (1990) Human error. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Reiber L (1996) Seriously considering play: designing interactive learning environments based on the blending of microworlds, simulations, and games. Educ Tech Res Dev 44(2):43–58

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rochlin G (1999) Safe operation as a social construct. Ergonomics 42(11):1549–1560

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sengers P, Boehner K, David S, Kaye J (2005) Reflective design. In: Bertelsen OW, Bouvin NO, Krogh PG, Kyng M (eds) Proceedings of the 4th decennial conference on critical computing: between sense and sensibility. CC ‘05. ACM Press, New York, pp 49–58

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Stearn M, Clarke T, Robinson J (2005) Baseline ergonomics assessment of signalling control facilities. In: Wilson J, Norris B, Clarke T, Mills A (eds) Rail human factors: supporting the integrated railway. Ashgate, Hampshire, pp 262–271

    Google Scholar 

  • Wenger E (1999) Communities of practice: learning meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to all the staff at London Underground who contributed to this study in any way, and to anonymous referees of an earlier version of this paper for constructive criticism. This work was partially funded by EPSRC grants GR/S67494 and GR/S67500.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. UCL Interaction Centre, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Penn Smith, Ann Blandford & Jonathan Back

Authors
  1. Penn Smith
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ann Blandford
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jonathan Back
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ann Blandford.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Smith, P., Blandford, A. & Back, J. Questioning, exploring, narrating and playing in the control room to maintain system safety. Cogn Tech Work 11, 279 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-008-0116-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-008-0116-1

Keywords

  • Human error
  • Reflection on action
  • Safety
  • Problem-solving
  • Control rooms