NPX Nuclear Dashboard Prototype

UX/UI Design Challenge - First Place Winner | November 2023

Project Overview

The challenge was to design a user-friendly, web application dashboard for monitoring radiation levels across different buildings in a nuclear reactor facility. The dashboard’s primary objective is to provide real-time information and ensure that radiation levels remain within safe limits. It should be user-friendly, efficient, and equipped with essential features for nuclear technicians.

Working in a team of two, my teammate Sophia Chen and I were given 38 hours to build a prototype through Figma and present it to a panel of judges (which included current NPX design engineers). Our emphasis on data saliency, safety and user research allowed us to excel throughout the challenge, winning our team first place.

User-Persona

Craig Ramsay

Nuclear Technician
27 years old

TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES

Rather tech-savvy
Has been trained on all equipment at the plant during orientation

GOALS

Ensure equipment is running smoothly
Report errors to supervisor
Monitor radiation levels
Ensure safety

FRUSTRATIONS

High learning curve on existing equipment
Interfaces are old, outdated and difficult to use

NEEDS

Must know whether equipment is functioning properly in each of facility
To know radiation levels
To know reactor temperature
To know pipe and coolant pressures

DESIRES

To be able to view as much as information at a glance as possible
To be able to get granular with data when necessary

rEQUIREMENTS

Must be a desktop application
Must allow monitoring of radiation levels across different areas of one large multi-storey building
Must display radiation levels (ex: reactor temperature, pipe pressures)
Must provide real time information as well as historical data
Must provide essential features for technicians (re: reactor temp)
Must be user friendly

Brainstorming

Prototype Wireframing

After the brainstorming process, we decided to plan a web application that consisted of two main pages; the Main Dashboard (to view all important information) and the Map View (for easy viewing of radiation levels and alerts). We also created a separate button where we were able to generate a report.

Design Choices that promoted safety precautions

Design Highlights

Precautions scale with different colour and icons (redundancy for accessibility)
Persistent alerts in warning/danger events
Saliency of key information
Side bar for easy access/viewing

Final Prototype

Understanding the user and their needs, we created a prototype that focused on the following tasks:

Accessing the overview of the pages
Task: investigating a warning alert on a pipe sensor in the nuclear plant
Generating a report for a supervisor

TESTING AND EVALUATION (due to time constraints)

Next Steps

Validate our assumptions through user testing from actual nuclear technicians
Feedback on design choices from nuclear technicians

POSSIBLE FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS‍

Sensor calibraton function
Better/more detailed representation of data
More functions (ex: help/tutorial, multi-language support, dark mode)