In my recent visits to German and Polish museums, I noticed a recurring theme: modular industrial dashboards, which I imagine have by now been all replaced by software. I don’t know much about these – please write me if you do – but I wanted to share them anyway, perhaps for context, or amusement, or inspiration. They’re interesting design systems, and interesting interaction systems as well.
This was a very cool physical display for air traffic control, at the The Deutsches Museum in Münich. At Fernmeldemuseum Stuttgart, these were used to monitor subway trains, or light rail. I do imagine these panels must have been interactive with all the buttons? I like that they light up to show status. A railway museum in Nuremberg used what looks like the exact same system, and I spotted a few modules with their plates removed.
Warsaw’s train museum had a slightly different system, but similar in look and feel. This big industrial switch toggled between day and night. And this was at the DASA Museum in Dortmund, from a power plant control room. This was by far the biggest one of the ones I’ve encountered, with the biggest variety of modules. But today I want to end at this great switch: Don’t you just want to rotate it, no matter what it does?
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing