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Seven simple solutions for designing on-machine 'help' systems

The author has extensive experience as an electrical engineering manager in the packaging machinery industry, including the development of groundbreaking servo machines and the development of PackML-based control software.

An HMI developed by Ilapak for its Delta 2000 wrapper incorporates well thought-out graphical design, on-line help tools and Pac
An HMI developed by Ilapak for its Delta 2000 wrapper incorporates well thought-out graphical design, on-line help tools and Pac

This content was written and submitted by the supplier. It has only been modified to comply with this publication’s space and style.

The future of operator interfaces will clearly follow the consumer market with intuitive, interactive help systems using video and animation, and even soon-to-be-introduced industrial HMI touch panels with multi-finger gestures.

However, the industrial present, for the most part, consists of limited freedom of design due to touch screen construction and a range of stop-gap documentation methods due to the relatively high cost and low functionality of both the HMI hardware and software.

As a result, operators try to find work instructions scrolling through a pdf document of the print manual on a 6” screen. Perhaps there are additional photos or even a PowerPoint show. But with a limited Windows™ CE operating system or simply no budget for the machine builder to develop more effective systems, this is too often the reality.

This reality is beginning to change with the introduction of higher performance, lower cost industrial PCs, some benefiting from Intel Atom® processors, others from powerful dual or even quad core Pentium® class processors. It’s no problem for these machines to run Windows™ XP Embedded or even Windows™ 7 and support a full range of graphical tools.

But let’s stand back for a moment. Regardless of how sophisticated or straightforward your help system, the fundamentals don’t change. Here are seven simple rules to make every help system more effective.

True, they’re broken every day. But they shouldn’t be.

If you are involved in the design, sales or support of machinery you can start by writing the seven one-liners on the white board. Assemble your team ask them what these statements mean to them.

If you are a machinery buyer, specifier or maintainer, consider lifting these seven rules word-for-word and adding them to your user requirements specification. That was easy, wasn’t it?

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