human factors reference for LabVIEW panel design

[MinerHokieRamp]

Could anyone recommend a reference book for human factors of LV graphical panel design?

The design I'm working on has indicators but no controls. There are several cases for states of the data that fill the indilcators (for example: on, off, invalid/stale data, failed, and some possible combinations of these).

Our current design flashes the indicators when the data isn't updated within a certain period of time, which can be very annoying to the operator. And there are issues with colors. Should red mean off or failed, for example? The current design has red as an indicator of off states and analog indicators flash red when the data is stale. Not a pretty sight.

Thinking of 'graying out' or hiding indicators when the data is stale.

I tried Amazon and didn't see any books specifically for control panel design.

Thanks,

[mikeporter]

You might check Microsoft and Apple. They used to have interface design standards.

Mike...

[BTC_Admin]

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@MinerHokieRamp wrote:

Could anyone recommend a reference book for human factors of LV graphical panel design?

The design I'm working on has indicators but no controls. There are several cases for states of the data that fill the indilcators (for example: on, off, invalid/stale data, failed, and some possible combinations of these).

Our current design flashes the indicators when the data isn't updated within a certain period of time, which can be very annoying to the operator. And there are issues with colors. Should red mean off or failed, for example? The current design has red as an indicator of off states and analog indicators flash red when the data is stale. Not a pretty sight.

Thinking of 'graying out' or hiding indicators when the data is stale.

I tried Amazon and didn't see any books specifically for control panel design.

Thanks,

---

The "standards" depend on what type of application you're developing and what audience/end-user that application is targetted for. For example when we design any medical devices GUI interface, we also look at FDA guidance on colors - Red is ommited from the screen altogether except for indication of something very critical.  FDA has several documents on their site, some are required others are suggested under guidance.  But there is no strict standard except for certain colors that I mentioned.

Placement of controls/indicators is best when they follow usual Human-Machine-Interface standards (for example, its best to pick controls or indicators that your audience would readily recognize - including wording on it if any.)  Again, there are several websites & documents on this if you do a google search but it still boils down to first recognizing type of application and its intended audience.  Even all these "standards" are suggestions except in some cases, so it's all left to a good developer's intuition.  Some big companies hire a whole department of HMI specialists with PhD for this purpose, Apple being one of them!

One suggestion - less clutter is best, and keep important indicators towards center of a viewer's eye-sight (starts at top middle, last is bottom left.  Exit button mostly towards right bottom unless if you provide proper exit through Windows red "X" exit button on top right).  Graphical User Interface (especially medical/surgical applications etc) is one of our main speciality but even then we're "guessing/assuming" at times!

Hope that helps somewhat...

-BTC

[patrickpollock]

Check out this thread on Breakpoint for some interesting links:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/BreakPoint/UX-UI-Design-Resource/td-p/3015071

[MinerHokieRamp]

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@mikeporter wrote:
You might check Microsoft and Apple. They used to have interface design standards.

Mike...

---

Thank you.

[MinerHokieRamp]

---

@BTC_Admin wrote:

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@MinerHokieRamp wrote:

Could anyone recommend a reference book for human factors of LV graphical panel design?

The design I'm working on has indicators but no controls. There are several cases for states of the data that fill the indilcators (for example: on, off, invalid/stale data, failed, and some possible combinations of these).

Our current design flashes the indicators when the data isn't updated within a certain period of time, which can be very annoying to the operator. And there are issues with colors. Should red mean off or failed, for example? The current design has red as an indicator of off states and analog indicators flash red when the data is stale. Not a pretty sight.

Thinking of 'graying out' or hiding indicators when the data is stale.

I tried Amazon and didn't see any books specifically for control panel design.

Thanks,

---

The "standards" depend on what type of application you're developing and what audience/end-user that application is targetted for. For example when we design any medical devices GUI interface, we also look at FDA guidance on colors - Red is ommited from the screen altogether except for indication of something very critical.  FDA has several documents on their site, some are required others are suggested under guidance.  But there is no strict standard except for certain colors that I mentioned.

Placement of controls/indicators is best when they follow usual Human-Machine-Interface standards (for example, its best to pick controls or indicators that your audience would readily recognize - including wording on it if any.)  Again, there are several websites & documents on this if you do a google search but it still boils down to first recognizing type of application and its intended audience.  Even all these "standards" are suggestions except in some cases, so it's all left to a good developer's intuition.  Some big companies hire a whole department of HMI specialists with PhD for this purpose, Apple being one of them!

One suggestion - less clutter is best, and keep important indicators towards center of a viewer's eye-sight (starts at top middle, last is bottom left.  Exit button mostly towards right bottom unless if you provide proper exit through Windows red "X" exit button on top right).  Graphical User Interface (especially medical/surgical applications etc) is one of our main speciality but even then we're "guessing/assuming" at times!

Hope that helps somewhat...

-BTC

---

We've been discussing where we need to to head with the panel redesign. We'd like to make it look as much like the most common user interfaces, i.e. smartphones and PCs, as possible. Your idea of using a red "X" at upper right for exit is an example of what we're thinking. I like your suggestions for understanding the audience, omitting red indicator highlighting (nothing critical in our case), and keeping the most important indicators in a central location.

Thanks for your inputs.

[MinerHokieRamp]

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@patrickpollock wrote:

Check out this thread on Breakpoint for some interesting links:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/BreakPoint/UX-UI-Design-Resource/td-p/3015071

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That's a very useful set of references. I missed that BreakPoint discussion in my searches of the forums probably because I was searching for "human factors."

I saved the links away as .mht files (one of the links was no longer valid) and also saved the pdfs.

Thank you very much for the help.

[johnsold]

If you are doing any cross-platform work, consider that the red X (small, round, and in the upper left corner of a window) on a Mac closes the window but does not necessarily quit the application. Apple is not as consistent on this as they were formerly, but many Mac users never think of using that button to quit an application.

Lynn

[MinerHokieRamp]

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@johnsold wrote:

If you are doing any cross-platform work, consider that the red X (small, round, and in the upper left corner of a window) on a Mac closes the window but does not necessarily quit the application. Apple is not as consistent on this as they were formerly, but many Mac users never think of using that button to quit an application.

Lynn

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The target is a PC. Not many Mac users among users of this app.

There are a few of Mac users 'out there' and I used to be one of them. I love my iPhone. 🐵

Thanks.