Intuitive and consistent: HDG Bavaria's boiler control
HDG Bavaria GmbH (HDG) offers everything you need when it comes to heating with wood–for homes as well for industrial plants. UID developed a new user interface for HDG to make using the different boiler types intuitive.
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The new interface and the proprietary design for HDG
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The new interface and design for HDG guarantees brand recognition at first glance.The background
HDG produces boilers for firewood, saw dust, wood chips and pellets, and exhibits a keen sense of responsibility when it comes to using raw materials economically and advantageously. But this is not the only area in which HDG pursues a modern approach. They know that usability and design also play a central role.
The starting point
HDG is active all over the world and was therefore looking for a consistent solution for its new control system—as easy to understand for international as for German customers. This was going to be achieved by relying on icons and illustrations for the new user interface.
The objective
The challenge was to develop an intuitive operational concept that perfectly reflects the special ease-of-use of modern boilers. Moreover, UID's aim was to develop a consistent, proprietary design for HDG that guarantees brand recognition at first glance.
The procedure
- In a kick-off workshop, UID's user interface experts and HDG got together to define the user groups and the usage context. From there, they continued by developing various usage scenarios. UID then evaluated the requirements for the new control system, identified the technical conditions and defined the design goals.
- In the course of three design workshops, UID drew up an information architecture and a user-centered interaction concept that met the requirements concerning the devices. The plans were then finished off by using wireframes to clearly illustrate the navigation and interaction flow.
- The next step was to work on HDG's proprietary design style using mood charts. UID developed two design variants, which were voted on in a workshop.
- And finally, UID created graphic resources for HDG–from icons and graphics to fonts and colors.
The result
The project resulted in a new interaction concept with a modern touch screen design. The added value for HDG is the consistent operational concept and screen design for all boiler types. This makes HDG's products unique and guarantees brand recognition.
Project from 2011
