Building Management System Delta View Mode Interface
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Building management systems (BMS) face challenges in providing an intuitive user interface for managing building equipment, as users are overwhelmed by numerous user-configurable options, with many remaining unchanged, leading to clutter and difficulty in identifying relevant settings for changes.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a graphical user interface with a delta view mode that allows users to compare the current system state to a comparison state, hiding unchanged user-configurable options and views, and enabling users to select historical or tagged system states for comparison, thereby simplifying the interface and highlighting altered settings.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If all user-configurable options are displayed in the graphical user interface, then complete system control is available, but the interface becomes cluttered and difficult to navigate
Solution Approach 1:
The user interface is segmented into multiple views organized in a navigation tree structure. Each view displays a specific subset of user-configurable options related to particular building equipment or functions. Users can navigate between views to access different groups of settings, effectively dividing the overwhelming comprehensive interface into manageable, organized sections that maintain complete control capability while improving usability.
2Loss of information
If unchanged user-configurable options are displayed, then complete system state information is provided, but users cannot quickly identify relevant changes
Solution Approach 1:
The interface dynamically adapts its content based on the comparison mode activation. When comparison mode is enabled, the system automatically identifies which user-configurable options have changed between the current system state and the selected historical state, then selectively displays only those changed options. This dynamic filtering mechanism preserves complete system state information availability while dramatically reducing the time needed to identify relevant changes by hiding unchanged options.
3Reliability
If historical system states are stored for comparison, then system state tracking capability is enhanced, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates simplified copies of historical system states by storing snapshots of user-configurable option settings at specific points in time. These copies are stored with associative metadata including timestamps and descriptive tags. When comparison is needed, the system retrieves and compares these copied state representations rather than maintaining complex continuous state histories, thereby enhancing state tracking capability while managing data storage and processing complexity efficiently.
Data Source
AI summary
A building management system includes building equipment that operate to affect a variable state or condition in a building, an interface generator configured to generate a graphical user interface, and a system manager. The graphical user interface includes user-configurable options with current settings that define a current system state. The user interface also includes a delta view mode button configured to allow a user to request to enter a delta view mode relative to a comparison system state defined by a comparison setting for each of the user-configurable options. The system manager is configured to identify one or more unchanged user-configurable options by determining the user-configurable options for which the current setting matches the comparison setting. The interface generator is further configured to hide the unchanged user-configurable options in the graphical user interface in response to a user request to enter the delta view mode.