Usability, First-Class HMI Design & Individuality – Implemented with VisiWin
An excellent HMI emphasizes the high quality and technological superiority of your machines and facilities and creates a competitive advantage. A convincing user interface combines functionality and attractive and intuitive design.
With the right tool and the right partners, this goal can be achieved within a reasonable timeframe and at reasonable cost.
Usability, first-class design and individuality are important issues of VisiWin.
Professional UX Design for a Unique User Experience
Creative minds have contributed their best ideas; the new HMI design is excellent. Contents, navigation, colors, and shapes – everything has been considered and thoroughly planned. In the next step, the draft must be transferred from the paper to the screen without any quality loss.
VisiWin is the ideal tool to meet this requirement. The graphics API implements the high-quality appearance of professional designs with accuracy and precision. Transparency effects, color gradients, animations – all UI elements (buttons, lists, views) can be styled individually. Moreover, design does not interfere with purely technical functions since all styling is contained in a separate XAML file, which designers can edit directly. Reducing time-to-market is the goal.
The Full Potential of Your Design Implemented with VisiWin Process Visualization
Even professional designers are amazed by VisiWin’s capabilities to realize everything they have devised, down to the finest details.
VisiWin’s superior graphics API makes concepts on paper become reality on an industrial monitor.
No proprietary image format is responsible for that but the WPF technology that comes with Windows. Most user interface developers are familiar with WPF and even design pros can work with it and deliver WPF components directly. Optimal results can thus be achieved with less friction.
Touchscreens that can recognize more than one finger and interpret “gentle” strokes are state-of-the-art technology.
VisiWin supports the development of multi-touch applications by providing ready-made elements and easy-to-use tools for the implementation of gesture recognition.
Whether navigation using swiping gestures or zooming in and out using two fingers – VisiWin has the appropriate function on board.
DirectX is used in computer games for Windows. High performance is a key prerequisite for success in the games industry.
VisiWin, too, uses DirectX through WPF.
A well-known term for programmers, WPF may be something users have not heard about and so needs some explanation.
WPF is an acronym for Windows Presentation Foundation and has been an integral part of every Windows version since Windows Vista. Since its first release, it has experienced a number of improvements and optimizations. WPF allows everything from simple gradients, transparency effects, and 3D images to complex animations. Moreover, WPF allows to build up data and logic separately and to easily combine them.
The conclusion: WPF is the optimal technology for a process visualization software. VisiWin 7 Modern UI lives in the WPF world and makes its power and performance available to the user.
VisiWin 7 Modern UI uses an image file format that allows to display not only 2D (bitmap or vector) images but also real 3D models. “Fly-through” to points of disturbance, animations, different lighting scenarios – everything is possible.
![[Translate to Englisch:] Plain Style Dashboard](/fileadmin/user_upload/Dashboard_Navigation.jpg "[Translate to Englisch:] Plain Style Dashboard")
The new VisiWin 7 Plain Style allows you to create modern HMIs that “speak” a clear and direct design language—customization is now even more efficient thanks to the integrated theming support.
The new style is available in VisiWin 7 for HTML5-based Web UI as well as for WPF-based Modern UI.
Individualized user interfaces often make use of specially styled UI elements.
There is no shape or style – whether round, irregular or partially transparent – that VisiWin could not implement. However, reusability is always given a high priority. Reusability not only saves time and money spent for repetitive tasks but also makes sure that everything looks identical and that changes are made but once.
The HMI application must provide the user with the right information and the right control elements at the right time. It must draw the user’s attention to critical states of machines and facilities, make visible on which page the user is now and how he or she can navigate to the information and interaction elements that are important in the current context.
A rigid navigation concept will not suffice for this complex task.
Swiping for multi-touch screens, automatic page switching depending on the operating mode or the current user, configurable and dynamic navigation, automatic creation of navigation depending on the options built into the machine – all these features have been implemented with VisiWin in real projects by our clients.
What does your navigation concept look like?
The engineering expert: Microsoft Visual Studio
A sophisticated user interface always requires a program in the background. This is where Visual Studio comes into play. In combination with VisiWin and optionally Blend, Visual Studio provides support for custom logic of any kind. Whether linking to VisiWin system functions or establishing a connection to a database – Visual Studio is the best development environment available for simple and complex functions alike written in VB.NET and C#. Of course, compilation, error detection, and error analysis are available in this development environment, too.
Anything prepared with Visual Studio can be used in VisiWin without any additional effort.
The design expert: Microsoft Blend for Visual Studio
The same project and the same data can be edited with both, Blend and VisiWin. If needed, Visual Studio can also be used to work on a project.
Blend is the tool of choice when it comes to creating styles, animations, reusable libraries for control elements, and much more. Anything prepared with Blend can be used in VisiWin without any additional work.
Reduce Time-to-Market and Gain a Competitive Advantage in Mechanical Engineering
You want to excite your customers with the new look of your HMI. The time from the initial idea to the final implementation should be as short as possible. With our experience, you will reach your target in less time and with less effort. There is a saying that goes like: “You don’t need to make all the mistakes yourself.”
Benefit from our experience we have gained from many successful projects. Please contact u. We will be happy to share our experience with you.
Good Design Is Worth the Price – With VisiWin It Is Affordable
You are planning a new HMI for your machine or facility and you already know what it should do. Or, you want to redesign your HMI and to get rid of legacy issues.
The task that follows requires a good concept. When it comes to design, there are often more opinions than people involved. So why not entrust an expert with this task?
User experience (UX) design experts analyze the requirements, the environment and the user groups of the new user interface. They design the first draft and develop a prototype. In several iteration cycles, the design concept is constantly refined in a dialog with the client until the final version is completed. The design concept can then be implemented with VisiWin effectively and accurately.
A convincing HMI/SCADA design does not come out of nowhere and implementation won’t be up for free either. However, the result is worth its price and reflects the high quality of your machines. An excellent user interface is yet another sales argument for your machine.
User-Oriented HMI Design – a Clearly Defined Process
Design Awards: Excellent HMIs Based on VisiWin
VisiWin based HMIs won no less than four prizes in the last years. Three of them were awarded to the “Connected HMI” developed by Krones AG while the “Machine Control Center” of BHS Corrugated won another.
Krones, an internationally operating manufacturer of filling and packaging equipment, relies on VisiWin 7 developed by INOSOFT as an open, flexible and powerful basis for their trendsetting “Connected HMI”. After winning the iF Design Award in 2018, the “Connected HMI” took home the “Red Dot Award: Best of the Best” in the same category (Communications Design). 2019 Krones received the German Design Award from the German Design Council.
BHS Corrugated, too, decided to use the VisiWin software for its operator interface and could take home a Red Dot Award for its modular Machine Control Center. For more than 50 years BHS Corrugated has been working in the construction of corrugators and the manufacture of corrugating rolls. Today the company is the world's largest provider of solutions for the corrugated industry.