Designing my own Home Automation UI

Ok, so now we have a Touch Screen in the living room. Time to design a UI that works. Not just for me, but for all of us. Where my first design was primarily based on using buttons with text to switch the lights, open the garage door or turn on the pump for the swimming pool, it didn’t feel right. It looked nice, but i just felt it wasn’t finished. Once you get used to using a touch screen, you start getting ideas to make things even better. So last weekend i tried a different approach by using a floor plan as background image and place buttons on it at the right spot:

Touch Screen UI

So now i have a new screen layout that shows a floor plan with buttons for those things that are used the most. It also shows the current temperature in the different parts of the house and outside. By touching the stairs, you are taken to another screen that shows the second floor. And for specific functions like information about traffic, weather forecast, controlling music, TV, showing phonecall history and other things like that, i created a row of buttons at the bottom of the screen. This looks much better than the first design, which was just a bunch of buttons on an empty screen. But i don’t think this will be final; after using this new UI, new ideas will emerge and lead to yet another redesign.. and another…