AutomationDirect | 16 Tips for an Effective HMI

Do you have an HMI project coming up? Here are some helpful tips and guidelines for you to remember during your planning and implementation.

1. Story Boards are a Good Start

A good starting point for HMI design is a text-based outline documenting each screen’s content. With the operator’s point-of-view and ease-of-use in mind, detail the main screen, equipment status screens, set point or recipe screens, manual functions, message displays and fault displays. These text outlines can then be converted to a story board for each screen.


The story board should highlight dynamic graphics such as status indicators. It should also include repeated graphics, such as titles, at the top of the screen and navigation buttons at the edges of the screen. The screen buttons, indicators and numeric displays should be aligned and grouped as appropriate. For example, don’t mix screen selector buttons with start/stop pushbuttons. Read More...