Design and development of a management system

Customer

Priva is the world market leader in process automation for indoor horticulture. They provide a wide variety of products, like systems for automatic climate control, management information systems, equipment for water and air treatment  and sensors. Priva is situated in De Lier, The Netherlands, and employs about 400 people.

Realization

2004

Situation

Priva Office is a management system used by horticulturists to measure and regulate various processes in the greenhouse. With this product the market gardener monitors the greenhouse's climate and can determine how many water, sunlight, CO2, nutrients have to be added. The present application of Priva Office was rather designed for the super users instead of average users. The design and usability of Priva Office was hardly modified to increasing functionality and wishes of the users. So new users experience many difficulties by learning the application and partly duo to that they use just a limited set of possibilities. Or they choose for a more usable solution offered by the concurrent.

Objective

Designing and developing a new user-friendliness application of Priva Office which has to be usable and attractive for new users without losing the existing users.

Target group(s)

Existing, new and potential users of Priva Office. This are persons working in the greenhouse and responsible for measuring and regulating the processes. Usually they are man without a specific IT-education.

Result

During the first user test several horticulturists were asked about their desires and requirements according the control and design of Priva Office. Then various concepts, among which the present application and an application of the concurrent, were criticized and tested through a number of personal interviews and online surveys. Finally the new interface was tested by limited number of users and a few small aspects were modified.

In the final product it is easy to navigate through a pull-down menu on top of the screen. Each sector has its own colour which returns in the menus and screens. The information screens are much more well-organized thanks to the use of anchor points at the screen, improved use of colours, new icons, the table lay-out and the consistent position of buttons and dialogues.

Click the image to enlarge

Conclusion

As a result of the user-oriented approach, the new product is a great success.

Remco Dijkxhoorn MsC, project manager of Priva, in a reaction: "We receive very positive reactions of our (test) clients about the new design and navigation of the new application of Priva Office. Several clients state that this new version improved a lot. And a few people who had not worked with Priva Office for a long time, claim that finally they can easily control this application. No improvement but a huge step forward!"