Preferred Navigation by Graphical Image or Traditional 'Windows Explorer' style?
Which navigation preference do you prefer to access a specific instrument or valve for maintenance?
1. Viewing an image of a process area and selecting specific tag?
2. Navigating through a logical database folder tree and seeing tag names in text?
Why?
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I'm not sure I would prefer
I'm not sure I would prefer either. Will the plant diagram be open all the time or would someone have to navigate to it first?
Typically we see most sites have either a tabbed or drop down style navigation at the top of the display. 1-2 clicks gets them to any display in the entire plant.
Ultimately it is up to the end user and more specifically operations.
Spartan Controls Ltd.
Depends who you are! I'd
Depends who you are!
I'd suggest that it would come down to speed of access and whats intuitive to the particular user.
Most people want to get to where they need to be quickly - especially if they know where they are going. Its frustrating knowing that you have to make 5 or 6 clicks (and you know it!).
If you don't know where you have to go - people tend to be more tolerant of number of clicks but want the process to be intuitive and guide them.
Another factor is how each approach is organized - is it logical to the user ? Crucially - whats logical to a process engineer may not be logical to an instrument technician etc. A plant diagram is fine for someone who knows the plant/process - but useless if you don't know where on the plant the instrument is (perhaps you only know what controller its connected to). Equally, a tag name may mean nothing to some people (and depends on sensible tag naming conventions).
Systems need to be flexible and be able to be organized how the individual user wants.
Pete