University of Twente Student Theses
As of Friday, 8 August 2025, the current Student Theses repository is no longer available for thesis uploads. A new Student Theses repository will be available starting Friday, 15 August 2025.
Human-Centered HMI Design for Industry 4.0
Schneider, R.M. (2025) Human-Centered HMI Design for Industry 4.0.
Full text not available from this repository.
| Full Text Status: | Access to this publication is restricted |
| Embargo date: | 1 July 2030 |
| Abstract: | Industry 4.0 is changing the manufacturing industry. Today, machines must be highly versatile and easily connected. To enable this and maintain the software of these machines, a modular implementation is essential. With the change in machine implementation, new challenges arise for the build of the connected Human-Machine Interface (HMI). The HMI must be as modular, adaptable, and open as the underlying implementation while remaining user-friendly. In the manufacturing context, different user groups, like operators, service technicians and application developers, interact with the HMIs. Hence, the problem addressed in this thesis is how to design an HMI in the manufacturing industry that is usable by different user groups while respecting the modularity, versatility, and maintainability of the implementation of the control software. To investigate this research question, a human-centered design process was applied to the development of new control software at Herrmann Ultrasonics. Herrmann Ultrasonics produces ultrasonic welding machines that can be controlled through an HMI, making it a possible use case. Initial user research, including interviews, observations, and a card sort, revealed multiple user needs and themes that then guided the prototype design. A f irst user test with a paper prototype that stayed close to the modular implementation showed that users were easily overwhelmed by too many modular building blocks without guidance. A second digital prototype that introduced guidance on the cost of an additional logic layer of the implementation shows improvement for the user. From the insights gathered, this thesis provides an approach to a modular HMI framework in manufacturing. This framework is a starting point for answering the question of how to design an HMI from a methodological point of view. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science |
| Programme: | Interaction Technology MSc (60030) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/107316 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
Show download statistics for this publication
Show download statistics for this publicationRepository Staff Only: item control page