automated control interfaces
information architecture and accessibility
project overview
This environmental control system is being developed for use by a company building commercial greenhouses nationwide. Factors such as lighting, fertilization and air circulation are fully automated with opportunities for custom grower settings as the need arises.
my contributions
My initial work for the design and engineering teams at T.E.C. Systems was to design floorplan infographics that would display temperature and airflow stats per room. Additionally, these infographics would show the architectural layout of rooms and illustrate the complicated network of ducts, air boxes and air supply units. After discussing needs with several building engineers tasked with operating the system on a day-to-day basis it became clear to me that accessibility around color blindness would inform many of my design decisions.
The team was heavily focused on engineering with not much concern initially for a ux design process using best practices. I helped to introduce ux methodology including the use of wireframes, workflow documentation, user research, usability testing, high fidelity prototypes and modular components. I presented and talked-through these new concepts with senior management and mentored coworkers in best design and workflow practices. Among internal teams and when dealing with external clients I championed use of non-violent communication methods and active listening. With feedback from building engineers and our own commissioning teams I made user-centered design decisions to iterate on initial projects. Other decisions were based on temperature trend analysis and other metrics captured during system operation.
This is an initial design I created to appeal to the growers based on our conversations. Other information-dense, table-based, row and column designs were created to appeal to more technically oriented building engineers (see next image).
The table is presented within cards that can be quickly swept through on a tablet without scrolling. Rows are grouped by room type and associated supply-air unit as requested by the building engineer.
The information architecture demands were immense and technical. The team used spreadsheets initially supplied by engineering to organize information and group it by room type and supply air unit. I used this spreadsheet to inform my site architecture and menu item organization decisions.
I designed this layout in response to needs expressed by senior growers with more of a technical background. The design incorporates a request for a "night mode" with "at a glance" status indicators and 24-hour trend indicators. Expanded side menu shown at right.
Floorplan infographics display the intricate network of environmental ductwork. I created this illustration with accessibility in mind. The layers of ductwork and equipment are color coded to show air supply ducts (cornflower blue), air return ducts (mint), variable airflow control boxes (orange and lemon). These colors are distinguishable even in greyscale (shown on right side) and were tested using a colorblindness simulator.
