I’ve been using OpenHAB for almost 10 years as an automation software for our wood dryer kilns, I used it in more than 200 kilns all over the country. It has a simple UI that nobody complains but there was always a conversation between us that we should upgrade the UI to something modern!
Today, I finally did it. Yeah, agents here and I can do it in a couple of hours, MAX!
I’ve got my first design and it wasn’t good! Try second one, still off. And off by a lot. The main problem was UX, the design was wonderful and modern and really polished but when I looked at them, I couldn’t understand where to look or what to do! Of course, I was confident that it would be resolved in the next design and yeah, much better but not even close to what OpenHAB team accoumplished several years ago. An interface which was simple but really understandable and effective.
Now I know that it is much harder to design something an operator can use easily. They should not see it as a burden. in the past 10 years that we used OpenHAB BasicUI in our kiln dryers, there was not a single person who had complained about the software! I didn’t fully appreciate this till today.
I will definitely fix this and design the new interface for us, but I will also keep the OpenHAB Basic UI to appreciate those who knew how to design an evergreen user interface!