Great Machines Deserve Better Dashboards — Built with TACTUN

In industries like materials testing, mining, construction, energy, machine operators are under pressure to perform flawlessly — often while juggling multiple variables like load profiles, safety margins, thermal drift, or pressure calibration.

But legacy dashboards often fail them:

Too many tiny numbers on one screen.
Hidden critical indicators.
Controls that behave inconsistently.

These aren’t just annoyances — they can be dangerous and expensive.

TACTUN’s no-code platform gives manufacturers the power to design fully custom dashboards, tailored to both machine logic and human logic. And it matters.

Understanding the Human Brain: 3 Biases You Must Design Around

Let’s walk through 3 well-known cognitive biases backed by UX science and show how custom dashboards build with TACTUN platform can help industrial machine builders design around these biases.

1. Change Blindness

“If I don’t notice it, I can’t respond.”

The Risk: In long-cycle tests or steady-state control, even significant changes (like force drop or temperature rise) may go unnoticed unless the UI draws attention clearly.

TACTUN features that help:

Visual widgets that change color or text upon reaching set thresholds (green → red).
Use of alerts tied to digital outputs (e.g., buzzers, lamps).
Real-time graphs for measurements and command signals.

Configuring Warning Widget

Configuring External Buzzer with Digital Output Through Rules

2. Hick’s Law

“Too many options = slower decisions.”

The Risk: Overloaded dashboards delay operator reaction time. Hick’s Law tells us decision time increases with the number of choices presented.

TACTUN features that help:

Test specific dashboards: Simplified dashboards with only minimum number of required widgets.
Custom Button Widgets: Replace complex multi-step procedures with single-button actions that execute predefined sequences. This minimizes error-prone manual steps and improves repeatability across operators.
Context-Aware Controls: Prevent misuse or accidental triggering by dynamically disabling buttons or UI elements when they’re not applicable or safe to use (e.g., “Release Clamp” is disabled until test completes). This enforces procedural safety and guides correct behavior.

Setting Rules to Enable/Disable Jog Buttons

3. Recency Bias

“The last thing I saw is what I remember.”

The Risk: After a long test, operators often recall only the final values, not the whole progression.

TACTUN features that help:

Auto-logging of graphs and screen states.
Snapshot and export buttons with one-click report generation.
Offline viewer with machine builders defined dashboard layout.

Running Test and Generating Report

What Manufacturers Can Build

The TACTUN platform is more than a dashboard builder — it’s a full-cycle development environment for machine manufacturers. Without writing a single line of code, OEMs can design and deliver custom control logic, operator UIs, and end-user applications tailored to each machine they build.

Here’s what manufacturers can build using TACTUN:

Control Logic & Automation Rules
Dashboards & Operator Interfaces
Machine-Specific Windows Applications with Builder’s Brand

The TACTUN platform can generate a Windows desktop application that your end-users will install and run on their PC.

This application:

Interfaces directly with the controller hardware
Includes your custom UI and logic
Requires no internet connection or cloud dependency (in the Own & Deploy model)
Can be distributed under your brand, as a full software product for your machine

This means machine builders become end-to-end solution providers — hardware, logic, UI, and software — all powered by the TACTUN platform.

Final Takeaway

Great hardware deserves great software, but more importantly, it deserves human-centered software.

The TACTUN platform enables machine builders to act as UI designers, product thinkers, and user advocates — without needing a software team.

Because the best machinery doesn’t just perform — it communicates, guides, and builds trust. And it all starts with a great product designed for the human brain.

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