Human Machine Interfacedesign

2020 is certainly a year which we will remember. Working from home has become the norm, distance has become familiar. Public discussions as well as private conversations focused on the current health crisis — with the rules and perspectives changing every week. Planning is becoming ever more difficult. Everyone is caught in the present.

We have nevertheless remained optimistic and are looking ahead.

Since the beginning of 2019 we have been collecting money to compensate the carbon emissions caused by our business trips, with us splitting the costs with our clients. At the beginning of the year we changed over to green electricity for our offices and at the same time decided to also compensate the complete carbon emissions of our office operations.

The generated amount is donated to the regional climate project TREEMER. Our donation is being used to plant severely threatened indigenous trees, which had almost disappeared from our local forests through excess felling, in the "Franconian Switzerland" region near Würzburg. This benefits our forests which are so threatened by climate change, drought and monoculture – and thus also us.

Treemer Website

After all – the Covid pandemic will be past at some point in the future and we are already looking forward to the moment! We are thus starting into 2021 with the resolution think globally, act locally, stay positive.

Our thanks to our staff, partners and customers for their support and fruitful cooperation.

We wish each and every one a merry festive season and all the best for 2021!

Your HMI Project Team

How to manage the balancing act between office and home office? Many people asked themselves this question in spring. In the meantime, working in the home office is nothing unusual any more. Since Corona has forced its way into our everyday lives, we have had to overcome many hurdles to adapt to the crisis.

The morning meeting at the coffee machine is now a thing of the past, and unfortunately so is quick coordination at the workplace. Today we will discuss the most important points of the day online. It is a completely different feeling not to be physically present. The unaccustomed distance changes social interaction and also the work process. Everyone knows that meetings can sometimes last longer. This is no different with the large number of online meetings. However, regular exchange between the team members and our customers is crucial for a smooth project flow.

Fortunately, it was possible for us to have all employees working in the home office right from the start. Of course, we were aware that the mothers and fathers in our circle are now not quite as flexible as usual. The team has done an excellent job here, despite irregular working hours. The internal organisation and arrangements were perfected and adapted to the new challenges.

In the meantime a few months have passed. The office is about 50% full again and home office is the order of the day, depending on requirements. The first meetings with customers could also take place again in the meantime, of course only with a lot of distance, hygienic safety measures and lots of fresh air. We have also developed new methods to support digital communication and the changed work processes. For example, telephone interviews and online questionnaires have been developed for our usability tests, with which we can now even test more easily and efficiently than before. The results can be evaluated more quickly and fed back into the design process. Our tooling has also been optimised accordingly. We now work with new conception and layout programs that focus on collaborative work.

We are looking optimistically into the future, even if many things are progressing somewhat more laboriously than usual. What counts for us is that everyone involved remains motivated and passionate about implementing their ideas. Many thanks to the whole HMI team as well as all customers and partners for their understanding and the still excellent cooperation!

HMI Project supports KraussMaffei Extrusion GmbH in the development of a new Human Machine Interface for the operation of extrusion machines. The focus is on developing a uniform user experience and a consistent user interface design for the entire product portfolio.
KraussMaffei Extrusion GmbH is a German company with around 800 employees and headquarters in Hanover. It is part of the KraussMaffei Group, one of the world's leading manufacturers of machinery and systems for producing and processing plastics and rubber. The company's portfolio covers all technologies in injection moulding, extrusion and reaction processing.

KraussMaffei Website

The User Interface for 'Aasted Smart Control' has been nominated for the UX Design Award 2020 and the German Design Award 2021. Already the nomination for these awards is a great success for us. Only companies whose products and communication design achievements can be proven to be of convincing design quality are admitted to the respective nomination procedures.

The German Design Award honours innovative products and projects, their manufacturers and designers, which are groundbreaking in the German and international design landscape. The German Design Award is sponsored by the German Design Council. Since 1953, it has operated as the world's leading competence center for communication and knowledge transfer in the field of design, brand and innovation. With international offerings, support for young talent and memberships, it is part of the global design community and has always helped to establish exchange and networks worldwide. More than 340 companies currently belong to its circle of founders.

The UX Design Awards are a global competition for user and customer experience, organized by the International Design Center Berlin (IDZ). With the UX Design Awards, the IDZ recognizes the role that user-centered design plays in creating a positive living environment. The IDZ is a leading independent German institution for the promotion of design as a motor for innovation in business and society. The IDZ offers companies access to consulting and expertise in the field of design, promotes the exchange of knowledge and realizes projects and events. The institution works in active exchange with representatives from politics, culture and science on a national and international level.

Project description Aasted Smart Control
UX Design Award press release
UX Design Award online project presentation
German Design Award press release
German Design Award Website

We are once again doubly successful: In the Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design 2020, we have succeeded for the third time in a row in convincing the international jury with the high design quality of two projects. We can thus count ourself among the winners of the most renowned design competition worldwide.
For the projects ›Easy Operation‹ of our customer Brückner Maschinenbau and ›LMS Life‹ of our customer Schneider Electric, the jurors awarded the coveted Red Dot twice. In 2020, 6,992 creative projects and brands from 50 nations were registered for the competition. Following the motto ›In search of good design and creativity‹, the 24 international jurors evaluated the submissions online this year and examined each work and brand professionally, individually and comprehensively. In doing so, they placed particular emphasis on the form, the idea and the effect. Only those projects that convinced the experts with their high design quality and creative performance were finally awarded a prize.

Press release
Project description Easy Operation
Red Dot Website Easy Operation
Project description LMS Life
Red Dot Website LMS Life

HMI Project supports Schneider Electric Germany in the design and development of a user interface for the Industrial IoT product ›LMS Life - Line Monitoring System of the next generation‹. Data visualizations and smart infographics are the focus of the project.
Schneider Electric SE is a publicly listed electrical engineering group active in the fields of electrical power distribution and industrial automation. The company is based near Paris and is represented in approximately 150 countries.

Project Description
Schneider Electric Website

Wir haben uns im letzen Jahr einen 3D Drucker angeschafft. Eigentlich vor allem zu Schulungszwecken, damit wir uns besser in die Aufgabenstellungen unserer Projekte aus dem Additive-Bereich einarbeiten können. Schnell hat der Drucker neue Freunde gefunden und es wurden inzwischen zahlreiche private Projekte darauf realisiert.
Aktuell können wir den Drucker richtig sinnvoll einsetzen. Durch private Kontakte in den Pflegebereich und zur Intensivstation einer Uniklinik haben wir erfahren, dass nach wie vor Schutzmasken und auch Visiere bei der Behandlung von Corona Patienten Mangelware sind. Auf Basis eines MakerProjekts drucken wir inzwischen rund um die Uhr ›Face Shield RC3‹ und konnten bisher schon 14 Halterungen spenden, die man zusammen mit einer handelsüblichen Overheadfolie als provisorischen Schutzschild einsetzen kann.

Wer auch einen 3D Drucker ungenutzt zu Hause stehen hat kann gerne mitmachen. Hier finden sich weitere Infos zum Prototyp Prusa Face Shield

The user interface ›logotherm‹ for the gwk Gesellschaft Wärme Kältetechnik mbH is the winner of the German Design Awards 2020. The competition is organized annually by the German Design Council and honors innovative products and projects, their manufacturers and designers, that are pioneering in the German and international design scene. This is ensured by the high-profile, international jury. Only entries that were nominated can take part in the competition. The award ceremony of the German Design Award 2020 took place on February 07, 2020 in Frankfurt am Main in the course of the 'Ambiente'. The winner exhibitions were presented in the Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt am Main and in the exhibition center.

Image gallery award ceremony
Project description
GDA Website

From 26 to 28 November 2019, the SPS in Nuremberg was the pilgrimage site of the automation industry. HMI Project was again an exhibitor and in addition to the latest award-winning interface projects presented its own product development for the first time: Helio - a 100% web-based HMI management system for creating industrial user interfaces. The Helio Editor works with a modular kit that automatically follows usability and design rules. The integrated UX intelligence generates fully responsive HMIs without the need for programming knowledge on the customer side.
Numerous existing customers and interested parties visited us at the joint booth of Bayern Innovativ and experienced with Helio a completely new type of HMI configuration. The response was very positive. All visitors showed great interest and in numerous exciting discussions we received valuable feedback for the further development of the product.

Image gallery from the show
SPS Exhibitor Profile
Helio HMI Management System