TOMRA Act

TOMRA Act

Goal:
Design and Align the interfaces for a range of cutting edge sorting machines. My role was to expand the UI to more applications and industry, focussing on agriculture and recycling in developing economies.

Outcome:
The machines and common interface won several industrial awards.

Ease of use became a major selling point for TOMRA’s products.

Overview

TOMRA’s range of sorting machines use various optical sensors and mechanics to efficiently sort food, recycling and mined materials.

However, despite the machines being highly advanced, the user interfaces on the machines were overly complex. This detracted from the value proposition of the machines because they were only as effective as their operator. 

A user interface was developed by Designpartners in partnership with TOMRA. This interface used simple conceptual models and drag and drop interactions to bring unprecedented simplicity to sorting. The first UI was designed for a recycling machine.

Over time, this base concept has been further developed for other TOMRA sorters with differing or new technologies. The UI also undergoes constant testing, exposing issues and potential areas of improvement.

Building on a mental model

TOMRA sorters use advance sensors like lasers to detect different material types. These sensors need to be adjusted and calibrated by users who don’t understand how they work. To allow them to do so, the UI is built on a simple mental model. Complex operations are simplified into sliders and simple drag and drop gestures.

These core concepts had to be expanded as the interface had to work on more complex and varied machinery.