How Do Operators Use Network Diagrams? Characterising Visualisation Tasks in an Energy Control Room

Paper Title

How Do Operators Use Network Diagrams? Characterising Visualisation Tasks in an Energy Control Room

Publication Info

• Topic area: Visualisation tasks in energy control rooms and their operational implications.
• Keywords: Energy networks, single-line diagrams, control room visualisation, topology analysis, temporal dynamics, alarm triage, geospatial representation, operator mental models, multimodal coordination, predictive simulation.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: There is a disconnect between research innovations in visualisation techniques and their deployment in operational energy control rooms. Existing tools often fail to align with operators' workflows and mental models.
• Significance: Effective visualisation directly impacts the ability of operators to prevent cascading failures in power grids, which can affect millions of people during outages.
• Motivation and related work: Prior studies have focused on specific visualisation techniques or individual deployments but lack a systematic understanding of the full spectrum of visualisation tasks performed by operators. This gap perpetuates the research-practice divide, leaving operators reliant on outdated tools and workflows.

Solution

• Proposed approach: A systematic characterisation of control room visualisation tasks using literature analysis and field observations, leading to the identification of five operational archetypes.
• Novelty:
  1. Extraction and coding of 202 visualisation tasks from 42 papers using the Munzner WHY-WHAT-HOW framework and Lee et al.’s graph taxonomy.
  2. Synthesis of six recurring themes into five operational archetypes plus a geospatial modifier.
  3. Empirical validation of archetypes through field observations in a transmission control room.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted a systematic literature review with PRISMA methodology, extracting visualisation tasks and coding them across multiple dimensions (WHY, WHAT, HOW).
  • Developed archetypes by analyzing task-encoding pairs and operational contexts.
  • Conducted a field study in a national transmission control room, observing operator workflows and comparing findings to literature-derived archetypes.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Operators rely heavily on temporal evolution tasks (40.5% in field vs. 22.8% in literature), highlighting the need for predictive simulation tools.
  • Geographic representations are underutilized in practice (9.5% field vs. 60.9% literature) due to operators' memorized mental models.
  • Alarm triage tasks are fragmented across multiple systems, with only 2.4% observed in the field compared to 12.4% in literature.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • The archetypes provide a structured framework for understanding operational needs, bridging the gap between research assumptions and real-world practices.
  • Identified gaps in current visualisation tools, such as the lack of predictive temporal reasoning and multimodal integration.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Literature review analyzed 202 tasks across 42 papers.
  • Field study observed 42 tasks performed by four operators in a transmission control room, capturing routine operations, outages, and shift handovers.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Findings are based on a single control room observation, limiting generalizability across different regulatory environments and grid scales.
  • Frameworks used (Munzner and Lee) do not capture multimodal coordination or tacit expertise.
  • Future work should explore predictive simulation tools, multimodal integration, and longitudinal studies across diverse operational contexts.

Summary

This paper systematically characterizes visualisation tasks in energy control rooms, identifying five operational archetypes: structural topology, comparative line attributes, spatio-temporal evolution, alarm triage, and overview synthesis, with a geospatial modifier. Field observations revealed misalignments between research focus and operational priorities, such as the dominance of temporal evolution tasks in practice and the underutilization of geographic displays. Operators rely on memorized mental models, multimodal coordination, and manual temporal simulations, highlighting gaps in current visualisation tools. Future research should focus on predictive simulation, multimodal integration, and sustainable design strategies that complement operator expertise while addressing scalability and training challenges.