Bachelor and Master Theses

Background

Using user interface (UI) components from available design systems allow software developers to develop their human-machine interface (HMI) more quickly. In addition, using UI components from well-known design systems, for example, Google Material (https://m3.material.io/), will allow end users to adopt and use the new HMI more quickly, since they do not need to re-learn everything from scratch. However, is there a guarantee that, when someone uses UI components from design systems for their HMI, the produced HMI will also have good usability?  Even if end users are already familiar with the UI components, surely there are still a lot of design decisions that should be made along the way by software developers to ensure the produced HMI is usable from the end user’s perspective.

The proposed project

This project investigates different levels of usability that would be achieved when designing HMI using UI components from a design system. In this project, the student will use UI components from a design system to create two versions of HMI of an industrial-grade display, which will be provided by CrossControl AB (https://crosscontrol.com/). One version of the HMI will be developed using the UI components with as little effort as possible. The second version will be developed using the UI components and considering some good design principles. The student will then need to evaluate the two versions of the HMI with some end users to determine how the different approaches of using UI components from a design system will affect usability from the perspective of end users.

Additional information

This project is a collaboration between CrossControl AB, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and Mälardalen University. If you are interested in this project, please send your CV to taufik.a.sitompul@ntnu.no

Prior experience in C++ and Linux is desirable.