One of the regular setups on the 1990s sitcom Home Improvement was Tim “The Toolman” Taylor trying to use some dangerous piece of equipment without reading the instructions, or understanding how to use it. Chaos and comedy usually ensued. The notion that people, and men in particular apparently, assume they know how something works or should work, seems to be almost universal.
People working in process manufacturing plants are certainly not immune, which can be a problem for companies like Emerson when making sophisticated and complex equipment. We have to figure out ways to compensate for this tendency if we want to be successful as suppliers and have happy customers. Ingemar Serneby talks about his experiences with this very situation in an article at automation.com, Advanced Instrumentation Design for the Next Generation of Users.
Ingemar works as a senior application specialist in the strategic product management team for Rosemount process radars at Emerson’s Center of Excellence for Level in Sweden. He was deeply involved in development of the Rosemount 5408 non-contacting radar level transmitter family and tells some of the story in the article, including how the team worked to design products suited to experienced instrumentation engineers, and to those just entering the workforce.
In recent years, industrial automation companies have made enormous advancements by incorporating processors into control devices, instrumentation and networking components. Improvements in CPUs, wireless platforms and memory have helped industrial devices, just as they have advanced smartphones and other consumer electronics. But just as individuals now have a dizzying range of options for a smartphone or tablet, an instrumentation engineer may feel just as perplexed when looking at all the options for something as basic as a differential pressure transmitter.
He’s summarized the problem: more sophistication usually means more complexity and more choices. How does a user choose the right feature set when there are so many options?
At the same time, all these changes are not simply technical. The expectations of how users interact with such devices are also evolving as younger people move into the workforce. A typical millennial has significantly different concepts of technology than baby boomers or Gen-X engineers. As a result, electronic devices, whatever their purpose, must be intuitive and easy to use. If something isn’t plug-and-play and easily configurable via an app, many users won’t consider it.
So, at the same time that products are becoming more complex, they have to be made simpler, at least in the way people interact with them. But how do people interact with products? Ingemar and his team decided they shouldn’t assume they know the answers.
The best way to find out for sure is by observation, so they set up an experiment.
During the evaluation phase of Emerson’s Rosemount radar level transmitter, we worked with SÖDRA, one of Sweden’s forest product companies, at its pulp mill in Värö where dozens of level-measuring applications are applied to all sorts of situations. There, we met with Per-Anders Fast and Andreas Berntsson, both experienced instrumentation technicians in the plant. The objective was to allow them to handle the test units, just like they would in an everyday situation, and watch the interaction. We looked over their shoulders, took pictures and notes, and did our best to get natural reactions. What we found provided further insights into how technicians interact with current product manuals.
The article goes into more detail, but let’s say that when the box of a new instrument is first opened, the initial impulse is not to review the manual in detail. This led the team to experiment with short, IKEA-style instructions to convey key points quickly, but the whole experiment resulted in a very important realization: any product has to be as intuitive as possible so users can simply turn it on and figure out how it works quickly and easily. This is even more important than creating better manuals.
Configuring a radar level transmitter, like any complex instrument, is done via a computer working in conjunction with the transmitter itself. Emerson created Radar Master Plus as the main configuration software application, and designed it to emulate the specific application as much as possible. Using images to illustrate the specific application, it is easy to establish setpoints and alarm values while verifying basic readings. Our users at SÖDRA took to it and verified its effectiveness.
So, the key, ultimately, is creating the most intuitive product possible without sacrificing functionality. Not always an easy task, but something we strive for.
You can find more information like this and meet with other people looking at the same kinds of situations in the Emerson Exchange365 community. It’s a place where you can communicate and exchange information with experts and peers in all sorts of industries around the world. Look for the Level Group and other specialty areas for suggestions and answers.