LabVIEW UI capabilities should evolve towards Google's Material Design

[TiTou]

I've been trying to follow google's material design guidelines.

There are many things I struggle with when building a UI in LabVIEW... I think following a set of guidelines designed by google is a good starting point.

LabVIEW UI capabilities should evolve to help us implement material design UIs

[AgentAstronaut]

Hey, you should check out the flat controls from jki. http://resources.jki.net/jki-flat-ui-controls-toolkit

Also, check out the tech preview. ni.com/techpreview

[TiTou]

I'm using it already, it is indeed a nice kit, but I'd like NI to give us a lot more than just a palette of flat controls

[Tepig]

Ya, I agree with this idea.

Recently Google has updated Chrome with Material Design, I love it.

[AgentAstronaut]

Hey Emboar,

Chrome has had Material Design for a long time now. Since about 2014 they have been using Material design as their guiding principles. One of the main ideas of material design is to create a framework that is native to the structure you are working in. For a test panel, this means that test panels across your company should have a similar look, feel, and workflow no matter who developed it. This can be totally worth it from a usability perspective, but it takes a lot of work to build up a set of principles that will work for you. I agree TiTou that LabVIEW has a long way to go if it wants to meet all of the material design principles, but LabVIEW isn't so far off, especially in LabVIEW NXG. This is my personal understanding, so I could be completely off base about Material Design. 

Material is the metaphor
Material Design is inspired by the physical world and its textures, including how they reflect light and cast shadows. Material surfaces reimagine the mediums of paper and ink.

We could take this literally in that LabVIEW was originally designed to make UIs that match instrument faces.

Bold, graphic, intentional
Material Design is guided by print design methods — typography, grids, space, scale, color, and imagery — to create hierarchy, meaning, and focus that immerse viewers in the experience.

This can be done with colors, panes, decorations, fonts, custom buttons. It isn't necessarily built in, and too much hierarchy can create issues, but it is available.

Motion provides meaning
Motion focuses attention and maintains continuity, through subtle feedback and coherent transitions. As elements appear on screen, they transform and reorganize the environment, with interactions generating new transformations.

This isn't really available in LabVIEW. Building motion into UI elements is difficult to do and does not work well.

Flexible foundation
The Material Design system is designed to enable brand expression. It’s integrated with a custom code base that allows the seamless implementation of components, plug-ins, and design elements.

This is the problem with the original version of Material Design. A lot of companies had problems making sure their app stood out in terms of UI. Some people say that a LabVIEW application always looks like a LabVIEW application. If LabVIEW provides the assets to make UIs, and you do not customize them, then it is likely that they will not be distinct from other systems. LabVIEW allows for an extremely flexible foundation, but without using tabs and panes, creating universal order and structure is not possible. In terms of providing a structured foundation, LabVIEW could improve.

Cross Platform

Material Design maintains the same UI across platforms, using shared components across Android, iOS, Flutter, and the web.

LabVIEW NXG Web VIs have some of this, and the ability to change the window size gives some help with this, but it isn't the greatest tool.