JP2012159943A - User interface design apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a user interface design apparatus capable of easily detecting inconsistency of parameter values of GUI parts in a UI design stage.SOLUTION: A parameter value setting number collection part 21 outputs a list which collects the number of devices set for each apparatus. A device type setting part 22 outputs a list indicating apparatuses set for each device. A parameter consistency check part 23 verifies parameter consistency by checking the presence/absence of the apparatus setting for each device output by the device type setting part 22 against the number of devices set for each apparatus output by the parameter value setting number collection part 21.

Description

  The present invention is used in a monitoring control system found in trains and plants, and a user interface for a monitoring control system that facilitates creation and operation verification of display device software that displays the status of a monitoring control target device (hereinafter, This is related to a design apparatus.

  In recent monitoring and control systems, as the amount of data to be handled has increased, data analysis processing and display processing have increased, and the number of screens to be produced with one monitoring control system is increasing. On the other hand, the man-hours required for screen production are being reduced. Therefore, in order to realize UI development efficiency of the screen display unit, a UI design apparatus is used as disclosed in Patent Document 1, for example. By using such a UI design device, a graphical user interface component (hereinafter referred to as a GUI component) for displaying the status of the monitoring control device is arranged on the screen, and various attribute values are set on the GUI component on the screen. Thus, the final screen display unit can be completed.

  Further, a general UI design apparatus has a function of checking consistency of design contents in addition to a function of designing a UI. For example, in a UI design apparatus as shown in Patent Document 2 and the like, by including a check process for checking the consistency between a model pattern derived by analyzing a required specification and a program component created by a user instruction, It has a function that can present the cause of inconsistency and improve software development efficiency.

JP 2000-347779 A JP 2002-733336 A

A configuration of a general monitoring control system is shown in FIG. A monitoring control device (hereinafter referred to as a device) 1 is connected to a plurality of devices 2. Further, the monitor / control system also has a display 3, and the display 3 has many screens for displaying the state of the device 2. When designing a screen for displaying the device status as described above, it is often designed by the following method.
First, a GUI component indicating the state of the device is created. Here, the GUI component is a label that displays a character, a picture, or the like with a common process incorporated therein, and displays various information to the user. In this GUI component, a parameter for linking device information can be set. For example, when creating a display element that displays the device B having the device number A, A is specified as the device number of the GUI component, and B is specified as the device name. At this time, the GUI component acquires the data of the device B having the device number A, and displays the state of the device B as a numerical value. In this way, the created GUI component is arranged on the screen, and monitoring control device information (device name and device number) is set as a parameter. Since this operation is repeated several times for the device to be displayed on the screen, it can be designed by a work procedure such as copying and pasting a GUI component already arranged and replacing the parameter value with the device information to be displayed. Many. In such operations, artificial parameter value setting mistakes such as parameter value replacement mistakes are likely to occur. Further, at the design stage, since the monitoring and control devices are not connected, there is no change in the display of each GUI component, and there is a problem that it is difficult to find a setting error in the conventional UI design apparatus.

  The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a user interface design apparatus that can easily find inconsistencies in parameter values of GUI parts at the UI design stage. .

  A user interface design apparatus according to the present invention provides a GUI component in a user interface design apparatus in a monitoring control system that creates a screen by associating GUI parts with monitoring data when setting and arranging GUI parts on the screen of the monitoring control system. When collecting parameter values that set the device name, which is the name of the device to be monitored, and the device number for identifying the device that monitors each device, as a parameter for the device, a list that collects the number of devices set for each device is output. Parameter value setting number collection unit, device type setting unit that outputs a list showing devices set for each device, presence / absence of device setting for each device output by the device type setting unit, and parameter value setting number A parameter consistency check that checks the consistency of parameters by checking the number of devices set for each device output by the collector. It is obtained by a click portion.

  The user interface design device according to the present invention collates the presence / absence of device settings for each device output by the device type setting unit with the number of device settings for each device output by the parameter value setting number collection unit, thereby matching parameters. Therefore, inconsistency in parameter values of GUI parts can be easily found at the UI design stage.

It is a block diagram which shows a general monitoring control system. It is a block diagram which shows UI design tool to which the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention is applied. It is a block diagram which shows the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the parameter value collection process of the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the example of a screen of the display apparatus of the monitoring control system of the train in Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the example of output data of the parameter value setting number collection part of the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the example of output data of the apparatus classification setting part of the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the example of output data of the parameter consistency check part of the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 2 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 2 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the example of output data of the GUI component Z index information collection part of the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 2 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the example of output data of the parameter consistency check part of the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 2 of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 3 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of the user interface design apparatus by Embodiment 3 of this invention.

Embodiment 1 FIG.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a UI design tool using the user interface design apparatus according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention.
The screen component arrangement unit 11 outputs arrangement information of GUI parts on the screen and parameter values of GUI parts. The arrangement information is X index, Y index, and Z index information on the screen of the GUI component. The Z index indicates the overlap of GUI parts, and the smaller this value is, the more the element is arranged on the back side. The GUI component parameter value (hereinafter referred to as parameter value) check unit 12 checks the GUI component parameter value output from the screen component arrangement unit 11. The software generation unit 13 generates software from the design data designed by the screen component arrangement unit 11.

FIG. 3 is an internal block diagram of the parameter value check unit 12 in FIG. 2, and corresponds to the user interface design apparatus of the first embodiment.
In FIG. 3, the parameter value setting number collecting unit 21 collects the setting number for the device number of the device name set as the parameter value when the GUI parts are arranged and set on the screen of the monitoring control system. In the device type setting unit 22, the user specifies a device number in which each device is mounted. The parameter consistency check unit 23 checks the consistency between the output result of the parameter value setting number collection unit 21 and the value set by the device type setting unit 22. The parameter inconsistency warning unit 24 outputs the presence / absence of inconsistency based on the check result of the parameter consistency check unit 23 and displays a warning.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the check function of the UI design tool according to the first embodiment of the present invention, and corresponds to the operation of the user interface design apparatus according to the first embodiment. When the check function is activated, the process proceeds to a parameter value collection process (step ST1) by the parameter value setting number collection unit 21. In the parameter value collection process (step ST1), the collection process of the setting values of the device name and device number of the GUI component is performed. In the next parameter value error detection process (step ST2), the parameter consistency check unit 23 performs a parameter value error check process. In the check method, the consistency between the data held by the parameter value setting number collection unit 21 and the data held by the device type setting unit 22 is checked. Consistency here refers to checking the consistency of the number of data settings for each device held by the parameter value setting number collection unit 21 and the device installation pattern consistency for each device of data held by the device type setting unit 22. Do. In the error detection result output process (step ST3), the parameter mismatch warning unit 24 performs a process for displaying the result of the parameter value error detection process (step ST2).

Next, details of the parameter value collection process (step ST1) of FIG. 4 according to the first embodiment will be described.
FIG. 5 is a flowchart of the parameter value collection process (step ST1) of FIG.
In the device name setting parameter search process (step ST11), the parameter for which the device name is set is searched among the parameters of the GUI component. In the device number setting parameter search process (step ST12), the parameter in which the device number is set is searched from the GUI part searched in the device name setting parameter search process (step ST11). In the parameter setting number collection process (step ST13), the device name searched in the apparatus name setting parameter search process (step ST11) and the device name set in the apparatus number setting parameter search process (step ST12) are coupled. Collect the number of settings for each device number.

Next, details of the parameter value error detection process (step ST2) of FIG. 4 according to the first embodiment will be described.
The error detection process of the first embodiment is a detection method that pays attention to the fact that the number of parameter settings often matches the device mounting pattern. A specific detection method is shown below.
A device number list A (for example, a list shown in FIG. 8 described later) mounted on each device is output as an output result of the device type setting unit 22 of FIG. On the other hand, in the output result of the parameter value setting number collection unit 21 of FIG. 3, a parameter setting number list B (for example, a list shown in FIG. 7 to be described later) for each device number is output. Using this list A and list B, the following checks (1) and (2) are performed.

(1) The number of settings output to the list B needs to be the same among all devices output to the list A of the device X. Therefore, it is checked whether or not the device numbers output in this list A are the same as the number of settings output in list B. If the number is not the same, inconsistency occurs in the GUI part of the device X, and it is extracted as an error.
Next, in order to identify the device number in which inconsistency has occurred, the setting number n having the largest number of appearances is extracted. However, when a plurality of setting numbers having the largest number of appearances are extracted, n having the smallest setting number is set to n. A device whose number of settings in the device number listed in the list A is not equal to n determined by the above method is extracted as an error.
In a device in which an error has occurred in the above check, if the set number of the device number is larger than n, it is highly likely that the device number has been set more than necessary, and the set number of the device number is n. If it is smaller than that, it is highly likely that the device number has been forgotten to be set in the GUI component to be set.

(2) It is checked whether or not the device number not output to the list A is the list B and the set number is zero. A device whose setting number is not 0 is extracted as an error. In a device in which an error has occurred in this check, there is a high possibility that a device number in which the device X is not installed has been set.

Next, in the UI design tool according to the first embodiment of the present invention, an example of data held by each component and data to be output will be shown.
FIG. 6 shows a screen example 31 of a display device of a train monitoring control system as an example of a system in which a plurality of devices equipped with a plurality of devices are present. The display element 32 of the screen example 31 displays the status of each device.

  FIG. 7 shows an example of the output data 41 of the parameter value setting number collection unit 21 of FIG. 3 when the screen example 31 of the display device of the monitoring control system of FIG. 6 is designed by the UI design tool in the first embodiment. . The parameter setting number output data 41 is an example of the setting number of each device for each device number of the parameter of the GUI part. The output data 41 corresponds to the list B described above. In addition, the apparatus numbers 1-10 in FIG. 7 respond | correspond to the 1st car-10th car in FIG.

  FIG. 8 shows an example of output data 42 of the device type setting unit 22 in FIG. 3 in the design of the screen example 31 of the display device of the monitoring control system in FIG. The output data 42 indicates a device mounting pattern, and indicates that each device is mounted on a device with a check mark in the drawing. The output data 42 corresponds to the list A described above.

FIG. 9 shows an example of the output data 43 of the parameter consistency check unit 23 in FIG.
In the output data 43 that is the result of the consistency check of the output data 41 of the parameter value setting number collection unit 21 shown in FIG. 7 and the output data (device mounting pattern setting table) 42 of the device type setting unit 22 shown in FIG. The result of the device of the device that caused the mismatch of the output data 41 of the parameter value setting number collection unit 21 is shown in white characters. The method for checking inconsistency in this case is shown below.

  In the output data 41 of the parameter value setting number collection unit 21 shown in FIG. 7, the pantograph is set once for the devices 1, 6, 8 and 0 times for the devices 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10. On the other hand, in the output data 42 of the device mounting pattern in FIG. 8, the pantograph is mounted by the devices 2, 6, and 8. Here, the check (1) is performed. In the list A (output data 42), the devices 2, 6, and 8 are used, and in the list B (output data 41), the devices 1, 6, 8, and 8 are used once, and the devices 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 are used. , 10 is 0 times. Here, it is checked whether or not the numbers set in the list B are the same among the devices listed in the list A. As a result, the device numbers 6 and 8 are 1 time, but the device 2 is 0 times, and it can be seen that inconsistency occurs between the list A and the list B. Further, in order to specify the device in which the mismatch occurs, n having the largest number of appearances among the set numbers of the devices 1, 6, and 8 is determined. As a result, since the setting number 1 of the devices 6 and 8 has the largest number of appearances, n = 1. Therefore, it can be seen that inconsistency occurs in the apparatus 2 having a setting number different from one. Further, the check (2) is performed. The devices that are not output in the list A are the devices 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10. In this apparatus, it is checked whether the number of settings in list B is zero. As a result, the number of settings in list B is 1 in apparatus 1, and inconsistency occurs between list A and list B. As a result, it can be seen that there is a high possibility that 1 is set more than necessary in the device number parameter of the GUI part.

  Similarly, it is understood that inconsistency occurs in the devices 2 and 3 when the above-described consistency checks (1) and (2) are performed for air conditioning. This state is indicated by white characters in FIG.

  As described above, in the first embodiment, a human error that erroneously sets the same device number multiple times between the same devices as the GUI component parameters or a human error that forgets to set the device number to be set is detected at the UI design time. There is an effect to. As a result, it is possible to obtain a screen composition device for a monitoring control system that can quickly produce a target screen application.

  As described above, according to the user interface design device of the first embodiment, in the monitoring control system that creates a screen by associating the GUI component with the monitoring data when setting the GUI component on the screen of the monitoring control system. In the user interface design device, as the parameter of the GUI component, when setting the parameter value for setting the device name that is the name of the device to be monitored and the device number for identifying the device that monitors each device, Parameter value setting number collection unit that outputs a list that collects the number of settings, device type setting unit that outputs a list showing devices set for each device, and device settings for each device that the device type setting unit outputs The consistency of parameters is checked by comparing the presence / absence of parameters with the number of device settings for each device output by the parameter value setting number collection unit. Since a parameter consistency check unit, the UI design stage, the mismatch of the GUI component parameter values can be easily found.

  Further, according to the user interface design device of the first embodiment, the parameter consistency check unit is a list output by the parameter value setting number collection unit in the device set in the list output by the device type setting unit, Whether the number of devices in all the set devices is equal, and in the device not set in the list output by the device type setting unit, the device is set in the device in the list output by the parameter value setting number collection unit Since the consistency of parameters is checked based on whether or not there is a human error that mistakenly sets the same device number multiple times between the same devices or forgets to set a device number that should be set in the UI It can be easily detected at the time of design.

Embodiment 2. FIG.
FIG. 10 shows a user interface design apparatus according to the second embodiment, which corresponds to the configuration of the parameter value check unit 12 in FIG.
The GUI component Z index information collection unit 51 collects Z index information of GUI components. The parameter consistency check unit 52 checks the consistency of the output result of the GUI part Z index information collection unit 51. The parameter mismatch warning unit 24 outputs the presence / absence of mismatch based on the check result of the parameter consistency check unit 52 as in the first embodiment.

Next, the operation of the second embodiment of the present invention will be described.
Also in the second embodiment, in order to perform the parameter value collection process (step ST1) to the error detection result output process (step ST3) shown in FIG. 4, the description will be made with reference to FIG.
FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing details of parameter value collection processing (step ST1) according to the second embodiment. The process shown in FIG. 11 is obtained by adding the Z index information collection process (step ST14) to the parameter value collection process shown in FIG. 5 except for the parameter setting number collection process (step ST13).
In the Z index information collection process (step ST14), the GUI part Z index information collection unit 51 searches for the Z of the GUI part searched by the device name setting parameter search process (step ST11) and the device number setting parameter search process (step ST12). Search index information. However, if there is a device that is set multiple times with the same device, the following processing is performed.
Z index information is sorted between the same devices (assumed to be X) and output as Z index information of different devices X (1), X (2),... X (n) ( For example, a door (1) and a door (2) in FIG.

Next, details of the parameter value error detection process (step ST2) of FIG. 4 according to the second embodiment will be described.
The error detection process of the second embodiment is often created from the same device with the smallest device number, and the parts created later are arranged on the front, so that the Z index information increases. This is a focused process. Therefore, when the Z index information of the same device is compared between devices, the device number can be detected. A specific detection method is shown below.
In the output result of the GUI component Z index information collection unit 51, the Z index information of the device numbers is compared between the same devices of the GUI component. In the GUI part, it is checked that the Z index information is smaller in the GUI part having the smaller device number than in the GUI part having the larger device number. That is, if the Z index information of the device n of a certain device is expressed as z (n), it is confirmed that the following conditional expression is satisfied.
z (n) <z (m)
Here, m is the device number next to n, and does not have to be a continuous value. For example, if the device number of a certain device is 1, 3, 4, 5,..., M = 3 when n = 1. However, if there are no m devices, it is assumed that no inconsistency has occurred. It is assumed that no inconsistency has occurred since there are no m devices for devices that have only one Z index information.
In an apparatus in which an error has occurred in the above check, there is a high possibility that the GUI component parameters are interchanged between the inconsistent apparatuses.

Next, in the UI design tool according to the second embodiment of the present invention, an example of data held by each component and data to be output will be shown.
The output data 61 of the GUI part Z index information collecting unit 51 in FIG. 12 is the output of the GUI part Z index information collecting unit 51 in FIG. 10 when the screen example 31 of the display device of the monitoring control system in FIG. 6 is designed. It is an example.
In FIG. 12, when it is set a plurality of times like a door, it sorts in ascending order using the Z index information between the same devices of the door, and displays different doors (1) and doors (2), respectively. . The same applies to air conditioning, but the air conditioning (2) information is output only for the second car because the air conditioning is set only for the second car.

The output data 62 shown in FIG. 13 shows an example of the consistency check result of the output data 61 of the GUI part Z index information collection unit 51, and the result of the device of the device that caused the mismatch is shown in white characters. .
The Z index information of the device numbers 5, 6, and 7 of the door (2) is 34, 33, and 32. At this time, inconsistency occurs in the Z index information of the device numbers 5 and 6, and further inconsistency occurs in the Z index information of the device numbers 6 and 7. Similarly, a mismatch occurs between the device number 8 and the device number 9 in the air conditioning (1) information.

  As described above, the second embodiment has an effect of detecting a human error at the time of UI design, in which device numbers are changed and set between devices having the same GUI component parameter setting values. As a result, it is possible to obtain a screen composition device for a monitoring control system that can quickly produce a target screen application.

  As described above, according to the user interface design apparatus of the second embodiment, when the GUI component is arranged and set on the monitor control system screen, the monitor control system creates a screen by associating the GUI component with the monitor data. In the user interface design device, when setting a parameter value for setting a device name that is a name of a device to be monitored and a device number for identifying a device that monitors each device as a parameter of a GUI component, the device number and the device The GUI component Z index information collecting unit that collects the Z index value indicating the overlap of the GUI component on the screen when each device is set, and the Z index value of the same device are compared between the devices to A parameter consistency check unit for checking consistency, and at the UI design stage, The mismatch parameter value goods can be easily found.

  Further, according to the user interface design device of the second embodiment, the parameter consistency check unit determines that devices having different device number order and Z index value order are inconsistent. It is possible to easily detect a human error that is caused by changing the device number between UIs when designing the UI.

Embodiment 3 FIG.
FIG. 14 is a configuration diagram of the parameter value check unit 12 of FIG. 2 in the third embodiment. This configuration is obtained by adding the configuration of the GUI part Z index information collecting unit 51 of the second embodiment shown in FIG. 10 to the configuration of the first embodiment shown in FIG. With such a configuration, both the check function of the first embodiment and the check function of the second embodiment can be provided.
The parameter consistency check unit 71 inputs the output data of the parameter value setting number collection unit 21, the GUI component Z index information collection unit 51, and the device type setting unit 22, thereby determining the presence or absence of inconsistency, and the result. Output to the parameter mismatch warning unit 24. That is, both the function of the parameter consistency check unit 23 in the first embodiment and the function of the parameter consistency check unit 52 in the second embodiment are provided.

Next, details of the parameter value collection process (step ST1) of FIG. 4 according to the third embodiment will be described.
FIG. 15 is a flowchart of the parameter value collection process of FIG. 4 according to the third embodiment. In this process, the Z index information collection process (step ST14) shown in FIG. 11 is added to the process shown in the flowchart of FIG. Since each process is the same as that in the first embodiment or the second embodiment, description thereof is omitted here. Further, the parameter value error detection process (step ST2) and the error detection result output process (step ST3) in FIG. 4 are also a combination of the first embodiment and the second embodiment, and thus description thereof is also omitted. To do.

  As described above, in the third embodiment, a human error that erroneously sets the same device number multiple times between the same devices as the parameter values of the GUI parts, or a human error or the same that forgets to set the device number to be set. This has the effect of detecting a human error that occurs when the device number is changed between devices and is set during UI design. As a result, it is possible to obtain a screen composition device for a monitoring control system that can quickly produce a target screen application.

  As described above, according to the user interface design device of the third embodiment, in the user interface design device of the first embodiment, the device name that is the name of the device to be monitored and each device are used as the parameters of the GUI part. A GUI component that collects a device number and a Z index value indicating an overlap on the screen of the GUI component when a device is set in each device when setting a parameter value for setting a device number for identifying a device to be monitored Since the Z index information collecting unit is provided and the parameter consistency checking unit checks the parameter consistency by comparing the Z index values of the same device between the apparatuses, the first embodiment and the second embodiment. Both effects can be obtained.

  In the present invention, within the scope of the invention, the embodiments can be freely combined, any component of each embodiment can be modified, or any component can be omitted in each embodiment. .

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 Screen component arrangement | positioning part, 12 Parameter value check part, 13 Software generation part, 21 Parameter value setting number collection part, 22 Device classification setting part, 23, 52, 71 Parameter consistency check part, 24 Parameter mismatch warning part 51 GUI component Z index information collection unit.

Claims (5)

In a user interface design device in a monitoring control system that creates a screen by associating the GUI component with monitoring data when setting the layout of the GUI component on the screen of the monitoring control system,
Collects the number of devices set for each device when setting the parameter value to set the device name that is the name of the device to be monitored and the device number for identifying the device that monitors each device as the parameter of the GUI component A parameter value setting number collection unit that outputs the list
A device type setting unit that outputs a list showing devices set for each device;
Parameter consistency for checking the consistency of parameters by collating the presence / absence of device settings for each device output by the device type setting unit with the number of device settings for each device output by the parameter value setting number collection unit A user interface design device comprising a check unit. In a user interface design device in a monitoring control system that creates a screen by associating the GUI component with monitoring data when setting the layout of the GUI component on the screen of the monitoring control system,
At the time of setting a parameter value for setting a device name that is a name of a device to be monitored and a device number for identifying a device that monitors each device as parameters of the GUI component, the device number and the device A GUI component Z index information collecting unit for collecting a Z index value indicating an overlap on the screen of the GUI component when set to
A user interface design apparatus comprising: a parameter consistency check unit that checks parameter consistency by comparing the Z index values of the same device between apparatuses. When setting a parameter value for setting a device name, which is a name of a device to be monitored, and a device number for identifying a device that monitors each device, as the GUI component parameter, the device number and the device are assigned to each device. A GUI component Z index information collection unit for collecting a Z index value indicating an overlap on the screen of the GUI component when set;
2. The user interface design apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the parameter consistency check unit checks the consistency of the parameters by comparing the Z index values of the same device between the apparatuses.   The parameter consistency check unit is a list output by the parameter value setting number collection unit in the devices set in the list output by the device type setting unit, and whether the number of devices of all the set devices is equal. In addition, in a device that is not set in the list output by the device type setting unit, the consistency of parameters is determined based on whether or not a device is set in the device in the list output by the parameter value setting number collection unit. 4. The user interface design apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the user interface design apparatus checks the user interface.   4. The user interface design device according to claim 2, wherein the parameter consistency check unit determines that devices having different device numbers and Z index values are inconsistent.

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