What will your customers think of the Ultimate HMI design layout?

[JesperMP]

I dont think they are circular trend charts.
I think they are X/Y charts, displaying something of a circular nature.

 

[Mickey]

I dont think they are circular trend charts.
I think they are X/Y charts, displaying something of a circular nature.

They look like orbits plots for X Y vibration monitors on the forward rear ends of a shaft. Just a WAG.

 

[alan_505]

I went to a customers site the other day and they us Red for running and Green for stopped (very confusing for most people I would think) and Pink for something that I cannot remember at the moment.

Alan

 

[Paullys50]

I would agree with parts of the article. Figure 1 is absolutely atrocious! 2d, minimum colors, standard schemes I'll buy into. After all we are controls engineers/technicians and just about all of us probably have NO formal education with focus on "design" of any sort. I also question how many of us out there can even come up with a matching outfit to wear to work! Just a month ago I was at a facility, and I walked past a filler machine and I thought I was going to go into epileptic shock due loud colors, flashing boxs and odd fonts had I stood and starred at it for more than 30 seconds. I can not phatom how that HMI is useful.

For me a lot depends on the operator and their abilities, as well as where the HMI is located. On the plant floor VS a control room can make a large impact on how I layout screens. Same with old grannies running the place, VS educated, VS non-educated, VS minimum-wage VS Language...etc.

I think the article over-simplifies what the "Ultimate" HMI should be! Although I am interested in reading more of their philosophy.

 

[Dua Anjing]

I like to keep the background etc pale and dull so that it cannot distract from what is important , equipment status etc and for these I use bright colors so that an operator only has to glance at the screen and then they can decided if anything needs a closer look, all dull and bland no need to look further, splashes of bright color or flashing colors they may need to put the coffee cup down and investigate. As far as colors go..I am working on a project where the SCADA uses RED for running/open and GREEN for stopped/closed and the Motor Control centers have GREEN lamps to indicate Drive Running. All done as specified by the client ...go figure..
As far as that example goes I feel it is to crowded.

 

[Rube]

I agree with Paully!

Way too many times we've seen HMI screens that have so much on them that it's hard to find what you NEED at the time. Plus, when an HMI is new to someone it can ALREADY be intimidating no matter how simple it is. We've all seen the look on people's face when they ask how to "start", "turn it on" etc., when there's no PBs like was on the "last one".

Main screens usually should be as simple as humanly possible.The rest can be on other screens with clear navigation buttons. And don't forget to put buttons on those screens that get you back to the main screen.

 

[Ken Roach]

The "Red for Running, Green for Stopped" standard comes, in my experience, from the American automotive industry but has been adopted by many facilities. I've seen many hundreds of MCC buckets with pilot lights configured that way, and it was explained to me that "Red means danger".

The left turn from Snow Road into the Ford Engine Plant 1 in Cleveland, Ohio goes across three lanes of opposing traffic and is controlled by standard overhead traffic lights. There are dozens of accidents each year from drivers ignoring these signals: almost every one of them is an electrician.

 

[BobB]

If I remember correctly I trhink IEC defines red as safe, green active or running and yellow or amber alarm.
For HMI design one of my customers informed me that grey is not a colour!!!
Thinking from an engineering point of view black lettering on a light grey background is about as readable as it gets.

 

[Clay B.]

I agree and disagree

We build what I consider a far amount of HMI's for our product line. We have settled on a few standards. One is green means running, gray means off and red means alarm. We use graphical displays to show the entire system on the main screen with Popups for the sub systems and manual controls. On our status displays we use green for auto functions and yellow for manual. I agree that an overly colorful screen can make you go into spastic shock but I have found I can get more info across with graphics than text. We do use text based alarms but most customers will call saying such and such is red and only read the text when we ask what the alarm is. We also have standards on the background (navy blue). This standard was more for marketing than anything else (business card color scheme). We also color text as yellow meaning pushbutton and white as as display only. From my experience consistancy is the most improtant feature with an HMI. It is more important that things are where the operator expects to find them than anything else. Also we always have atleast 2 paths to get to seconday screens. A menu screen is a must on all of our system even if we have object buttons on the screens itself.

 

[rta53]

I went to a customers site the other day and they us Red for running and Green for stopped (very confusing for most people I would think.
Alan

I first saw this at a power plant where we installed some equipment. I already had enough problems with feeling dyslexic at times, and seeing all those red lights for running motors didn't help.

 

[Johnster]

I work at a power plant - we are doing a major control room redesign (right now- the entire plant is run by switches and buttons on the floor-to-ceiling control panels) - and the end of our project, half of the plant will be on an HMI screen, and the rest will still be on the panels.

the operators are going to hate this.. but money made this call.

And yes, red means running, green means stopped =)

-John

 

[Tom Jenkins]

No need to read any further. Articles written by people that can't actually be employed in any industry they write about aren't worth the paper they aren't printed on.

Consultants are just school and business failures that have enough smarts to find a print shop to make up some cards.

Generalizations are always wrong!

This one is like that old line "Those who can, do, those who can't, teach." They both belong in file 13.

I don't consider myself either a business or a professional failure, and I've paid my dues in the field many times over. Now I'm both consulting and teaching, and I like to think I'm very good at both because I've run my own business for a quarter century and I'm pretty good at what I do.

Now, about the HMI, some of his suggestions I like and some I don't. I think his opening screen is way to busy. Sometimes pictoral representations help the operators visualize, so a blanket condemnation isn't justified. I agree that trending is a great tool, and I like to put multiple trends of related variables on the same screen or as different pens on the same trend. For example, flow and pressure together can help in diagnostics.

Color codes are tricky, and consistency is more important than the actual codes. I prefer grey off, green run, and red fault. However, a lot of plants have adopted the power industry "red=dangerous=on/open" and "green=safe=off/closed". Either works fine if they are consistent - operators learn.

 

[DamianInRochester]

There is a whole other side to this as well.

Customers don't always want what they need.

I have seen quite a few that are very proud of their system they just got in that has all these beautiful screens and animations and graphics. Often, as we all know, many of these things can actually come at the expense of functionality and performance.

It can be difficult to balance what the customer thinks looks cool, and what he really needs. Especially if you being compared to something thats focus was being pretty first and everything else after.

 

[iant]

i am yet to read this fully - looks interesting.
I have one interesting point.
I have qualifications to operate High voltage switch gear.
some of these systems can be remotely switched.
But the colour code is-
RED - DANGER - POWER IS ON
WHITE - TEST - POWER MAY BE ON BUT LOAD IS NOT SWITCHED
GREEN - SAFE - DEVICE IS SWITCHED OFF AND RACKED OUT - READY FOR NEXT STEP

so there is issues with the industry standard of RED and GREEN
- Forget about colour blindness.

 

[Oakley]

There is a whole other side to this as well.

Customers don't always want what they need.

I have seen quite a few that are very proud of their system they just got in that has all these beautiful screens and animations and graphics. Often, as we all know, many of these things can actually come at the expense of functionality and performance.

It can be difficult to balance what the customer thinks looks cool, and what he really needs. Especially if you being compared to something thats focus was being pretty first and everything else after.

And this is why the industry got skewed in the first place.
It is our responsibility to consult/inform/advise those who do not understand what the ramifications are.

Just like in alarm management ... just because you can configure alarms on points, doesn't mean that you should. An analysis of the system needs to dictate what is truely an alarm, what the action to rectify the situation is, and what the reset condition should be.