Friday, September 2, 2011

Interesting article - The Ultimate HMI

This Control Global article, The Ultimate HMI, provides interesting tips about HMI screen creation. I especially like the comments and examples of the best visual status indications containing: text, shape, and color.


3 comments:

Carl.Gould said...

Nice, concise overview of proper HMI graphics. The number of projects I see that adhere to this is actually very small - eye candy is too seductive for most companies to resist.

dep05d said...

I think that graphic is from a book I own called the High Performance HMI Handbook.

http://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-HMI-Handbook/dp/0977896919

There are lots of good standards in the book, but it can be difficult to get buy-in from customers/management when they get caught up wanting whiz-bang bright and shiny things that add nothing to the functionality of the application.

There was also a good video highlighting these HMI standards on pas.com in the "Resources" section. I think it's still out there. A free account registration is required.

Dan

Anonymous said...

Some good points but a tad catholic: by insisting that graphics be boring he may be trading one trap for another. Graphics are authored: the reason they are written is the users themselves. How they are written should depend on that more than any other factor. The new tools available generally outstrip knowledge of how to properly use them; the Ultimate HMI has some good starting points but I hope the author realizes that operator interest IS a function of graphics design and its value should not be overlooked. Authors need more training in graphic design.