Controls › SCADA & HMI
HMI Design
Building operator displays people can actually run a plant from.
Written guides in this section
Full references, procedures, and diagnostic guides published under HMI Design.
ISA-101: Human Machine Interfaces
What the ISA-101 standard for human machine interfaces covers, its lifecycle from philosophy to maintenance, the display hierarchy, and what adopting it changes on a project.
8 min readUpdated Sep 5, 2026
HMI Navigation
How operators move through the displays: the display hierarchy from overview to detail, a fixed navigation bar with area alarm indication, one-click paths from an alarm to the device, the rules that keep any display within two clicks, and what to leave out.
9 min readUpdated Sep 5, 2026
Color in HMI Design
How color is used on a high performance HMI: a gray palette for normal operation so that color means something, alarm colors reserved by priority, equipment state by fill and text rather than red and green, color-blind safe choices, and the palette table.
9 min readUpdated Sep 5, 2026
Alarm Indication on the HMI
How an alarm looks and sounds on the operator screen: the ISA-101 and ISA-18.2 rules for color, shape, and blink, the alarm banner and summary, acknowledgment behavior, navigation to the alarm, and indication that survives colorblindness and a noisy control room.
10 min readUpdated Sep 5, 2026
Situational Awareness
Designing displays so an operator knows what is happening, what it means, and what comes next: the three levels of awareness, the display hierarchy, analog indicators with normal ranges, embedded trends, time-to-limit predictions, and a test for any display.
10 min readUpdated Sep 5, 2026
HMI Faceplates
The pop-up that controls one device: what a pump, valve, or loop faceplate must show, the mode and command layout, interlock and permissive display, security by role, and building faceplates from a standard object so every device behaves the same.
10 min readUpdated Sep 5, 2026
Topics in this area
ISA-101
The human-machine interface standard: lifecycle, style guides, and design consistency.
High Performance HMI
Grey backgrounds, reserved color, and displays built for detecting abnormal conditions rather than decoration.
Navigation
Navigation — practical reference notes for controls engineers, integrators, and technicians working with hmi design.
Colors
Colors — practical reference notes for controls engineers, integrators, and technicians working with hmi design.
Alarm Indication
Alarm Indication — practical reference notes for controls engineers, integrators, and technicians working with hmi design.
Situational Awareness
Situational Awareness — practical reference notes for controls engineers, integrators, and technicians working with hmi design.
Faceplates
Faceplates — practical reference notes for controls engineers, integrators, and technicians working with hmi design.
Trends
Trends — practical reference notes for controls engineers, integrators, and technicians working with hmi design.
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