Danfoss ECL Comfort 210/310 Series

The Danfoss ECL Comfort 210/310 is an electronic weather compensated temperature controller, used in district heating, central heating and cooling system applications. The product features a click wheel interface, which is easy to operate and a graphical display providing an overview of the system.

In just 2 weeks, dknl design helped develop a physical, interactive prototype used for testing and developing the product interface. The prototype uses a small USB screen and a modified computer mouse, integrated into a foamcore model to simulate a matrix display and click wheel functionality. The physical prototype was attached to a PC running the simulation and was taken to different countries for customer evaluation and presentation.

dknl design joined the project when the initial static screens for the user interface were designed, so the main task was to make these dynamic in a prototype that offered a realistic experience in terms of screen size and interaction possibilities. The prototype was made on a 1:1 scale, and enabled evaluating the different screens and graphics in the right size and in the context of use.

The prototype was set up to easily switch between three different localizations. The development team used spreadsheets for keeping track of all text in the different languages. dknl design developed a tool to convert these spreadsheets for use in the prototype, so the development team could do local testing and refinement by themselves, without the need for additional support.