User Interface Design - Nanometrics

Web-based application GUI design...
...create an exciting new UI for a satellite equipment management application.

Client

Nanometrics is a world leader in the development of seismological instruments and networks used to monitor, investigate and help understand global seismological events. Their fully-integrated satellite system has been deployed in over 100 countries across the globe to establish and grow research networks. These systems are deployed in a variety of diverse environments and can include mission-critical national and regional networks that demand the highest possible data quality and availability.

Challenge

When Nanometrics began planning the development of a new product that would enable customers to remotely monitor, configure, and maintain their satellite and sensor equipment, they wanted a design partner who could help ensure the user experience was simple and compelling. The interface would present some key challenges:

• Given their global customer base Nanomentrics wanted key elements of the interface to make effective use of icons and visual design conventions
• The interface had to have an effective method to navigate and execute actions against a potentially diverse device network
• Device health needed to clearly convey the impact of an alarm on the device subsystem and the device itself.

Our Work

Preliminary meetings were used to vet the design brief and ramp up our knowledge of the product domain, Nanometrics users, stakeholder expectations, and the key GUI challenges for the new product.

A preliminary information architecture was then created and wireframes were produced for key screens. The preliminary architecture helped the Nanometrics team visualize the interface, our solution for device-action representation and provided an opportunity for early feedback on design direction. After working through several iterations of the wireframes with the development team, the user interface architecture was completed and the visual design of the application was explored.

Several visual design concepts were created and used to explore the use of icons and alarming strategies and helped bring the stakeholders to a consensus on the final visual design direction for the application. We also created device-table maps that visually communicated the relationship between a parameter alarm and the device subsystem. With the visual design direction finalized the key application screens were mocked up and layout specifications were created to help guide the development team during implementation.

Select a thumbnail to see some samples of the Nanometrics device management web application.