Design a UI for an industrial robot programming Windows application

We have completed coding for an application that simplifies the programming of an ABB industrial robot using a flow chart method and want an awesome user interface which is not only intuitive but is pleasing to the eye and will lend itself to be used on a tablet with finger control. ## Deliverables IRB Industrial Robot Programmer Overview The purpose of the project is to simplify the programming of the ABB industrial robots by providing a flow chart method to define each step of a series of possible moves a robot would make to complete a task. In addition flow control statements can be imbedded to allow for conditional moving. Methodology A flow chart can be created using pre-defined actions, drag-drop from a list of commands. This will allow the user to create a series of actions which can be compiled into a format usable by the robot controller. Platform The application is a console app written for MS Windows. With the explosion of tablet devices we would like to make provision for them, at this stage those running Windows with Android as a future development. The issue with tablets seems to be the finger control, whereas the mouse pointer can be precisely positioned the finger not so, needs large landing zones. Current state of the project The beta version of the application has been done, twenty nine functions have been defined and tested, and a further twelve are planned for. Our strengths are in coding and our current UI is just not good enough, we want help in improving this. User Interface The user interface consists of four primary functions: 1: Menu - very limited, New, Open Delete and Compile 2: Pre-defined function blocks that can be dragged and dropped into the flow chart. 3: The flow chart - each step of the process in sequential order. 4: The function detail - detail description and input of variables applicable to the selected flow chart block. Please see the short video of our beta user interface and how it is expected to be used. We choose the orange theme as this is ABB's corporate colour. What we are looking for is an intuitive, graphical interface that is awesome! The user of this application needs to look at the picture and intuitively understand what input is required without any need to refer to a technical manual. We want to appoint someone who will advise us on layout, colour and flow and be prepared to design sample screen layouts and with our involvement modify these and develop them until we can say they are truly "awesome". We envisage a very graphical interface and would also look for assistance in creating these graphics. With our current thinking, and this is not to say it will not change once we have the new look, we required at least 29 different graphics in three sizes, 16x16 for the function selection item, 40x40 for the flow chart block and for the detail block varying sizes (please see the video). Proposed way forward We opted for a pay per hour bases for this project because we understand this type of design can be open ended and depending on how many versions we will go through will impact on your time. For us to select a consultant we would like a description of how you would approach our project, any ideas you have to up the awesome factor an example of some of your best work and if you are prepared a quick mock up of a screen layout we could consider developing. This is not a guaranteed project. List of functions currently defined and description of graphic required 1. Define work environment - set the zero point in reference to the robot a. Graphic to show Cartesian coordinates (xyz) plus rotation around xyz axis as an offset from the robot 2. Define the tool object - the details of the "tool" or device attached to the robot arm a. Graphic to show the Cartesian coordinates (xyz) plus rotation around xyz of the tool tip position relative to the centre point of the robot head. In addition the Cartesian coordinates of the centre of gravity of the tool object plus its weight. 3. Move the tool tip linearly a. Graphic to show the tool tip moving linearly from the current position to the new position defined by the Cartesian coordinates (xyz) plus rotation around xyz. 4. Move the tool tip rapidly (non-linear) a. Graphic to show the tool tip moving non-linearly (rapid move) from the current position to the new position defined by the Cartesian coordinates (xyz) plus rotation around xyz. 5. Move the tool tip circularly a. Graphic to show the tool tip moving linearly from the current position circularly to the new position defined by the Cartesian coordinates (xyz), rotation around xyz plus radius or arc. 6. Declare a user variable a. Graphic to represent a variable, needs a name and type (byte, numeric or string) 7. Assign a value to a variable a. Graphic to show the assigning of a value to a pre-defined variable in 6 above. 8. Write to the robot display and wait for a function key input a. The robot has a display to which the user can write 7 lines by 40 characters of text and 5 function keys along the bottom. The text above the function key is also user defined. The graphic should represent this display. 9. DO WHILE conditional statement a. Program execution will continue in a loop as long as the condition in the While statement is true. 10. IF conditional statement a. Program execution will continue if the IF condition is true or it will jump to the end of the If statement. 11. IF ELSE conditional statement a. Same as above but will execute the Else statement if the IF condition is not true. 12. CHOOSE CASE conditional statement a. Program execution will only execute the code if the Choose condition matches the Case value. 13. Displacement set a. Graphical representation of offsetting the work object defined in item 1. Only xyz coordinates. This function is needed for repetitive actions that are displaced by a given amount. Typical step and repeat type action. 14. Displacement clear a. Clear the displacement defined above and return to machine zero position defined in item 1. 15. Digital output set a. The robot controller has 16 digital output signals that can be programmatically controlled. This function sets one of those to an "on" state. Condition is on or off. 16. Digital output clear a. Sets the digital output signal to the "off" state. 17. Pulse digital output a. Pulses digital output from off to on and off again. 18. Invert digital output a. Whatever the current state of a digital output is, it is inverted. 19. Wait for digital input a. The robot controller has 16 digital input signals. This function stops program execution until the defined signal goes "on". 20. Set analogue output a. The robot controller has 8 analogue output signals, this function sets the value (0 to 24 volts) of one of these outputs. 21. Reset timer a. One timer is available for either measure elapsed time or be used in a flow statement such as Do While. Graphic to represent the zeroing of the timer. 22. Start timer a. Graphic to represent the starting of the timer. 23. Read timer a. Graphic to represent the reading of the timer. 24. Wait for x seconds a. Graphic to show the program waiting for a defined number of seconds to elapse before continuing. 25. Exit program a. Halt program execution, no restart allowed. 26. Stop program a. Stop program execution, restart is allowed. 27. Import G-code file a. A G-code file is a file of movements created externally by CAM software that can be imported into the flow. 28. System variables a. There are three environmental variables that need to be defined, two are on/off conditions and the 3rd is the rate of acceleration and deceleration when the robot arm starts and stops moving. 29. Zone data a. This graphic needs to represent how the transition will occur from one movement to the next. The options are to "fly-by" without deceleration by a defined radius or to come to a complete halt and restart applying the acceleration and deceleration values.