Machining-tooling UX redesign

An important company in the Basque Country specialised in machine-tooling, was looking to redesign the experience of their products.

It was an R&D project in which the company aimed to explore the possibility of digitising the interfaces of their machines.

Introduction

Machine tooling, often referred to as simply “tooling,” is the process manufacturing using various tools, equipment, and machines to shape, cut, form, or finish materials into specific parts or components. These tools are essential for a wide range of manufacturing processes across different industries.

By 2015, the trend for CNC machine interfaces was becoming more user-friendly and visually appealing, especially in advanced applications.

For this project I teamed up with my master’s degree professor in the Mondragon University as part of an internship.

Key challenges

I started this project understanding of the context of the current product. Through the client, we had access to their facilities and permissions to observe and talk to users.

From this discovery we learned that operators were used to work the way they already. It seemed that having learned to use them with all the complexity the machines had was an object of pride.

This reminded me the case of what could have been in the past the transition of the traditional way of defining technical drawings and the surge of CAD software.

For this reason, one of the biggest challenges was to define the UX of this interface with little user input about their pain points. The learning of these machines was “earned” so why they should be easy to use?

Other challenge was the understanding of the use of the machine and its different stages from start to end. We observed operators and asked questions about the process in order to define a user journey.

Design process

During the discovery phase, with my colleague put together user journey map to detect areas of opportunity through their experience. From start to end, we defined the user steps before (preparation) the use of the machine until after its use.

We also identified other users/roles interacting with the machine in the manufacturing process. Specific functions like maintenance or management would require to have their own tools or permissions separated from operator.

Looking to designs in the market we discovered that in most of the cases the UI looked like spaceships dashboards. However, there was a trend in the concept of “apps” where different functions were graphically defined as apps with a corresponding symbol/icon.

Consequently, we looked for inspiration in other products and how different digital interfaces display the information on the screen.

We observed examples of interactive displays and UI elements like in Adidas and Airbnb that could enhance the experience in the machine. For example communicate to the user in what step of the set up they are or the machining process status.

Wireframes and prototype

From sketches to digital design, I worked on organising the information in the different screens until reach a first design proposal. We had several rounds of feedback with the client to refine the design and coming up with a prototype.