@David: Berlin! Ich habe ein Jahr in Goettingen studiert 🙂 Sorry about the BBQ, maybe some other time. Stone Brewery, a wonderful micro brewery near me in San Diego, is opening a MicroBrewery in Berlin soon. You should try it to taste what real beer should taste like 🙂
This is really coming along well! I like it very much. I like the fonts. Maybe the rain delay should be in days, not hrs. Delays last for the next program start time. In California, the rule is 2 days delay when rain is detected. I don’t know why I’d ever just delay some hours.
I’m missing feedback when I enter parameters. I don’t know if they have taken effect (there is no “enter” button). I’m not sure if when I select the Run Station time if it took or not. So haptic feedback would be nice, or some positive feedback (“signifier” in Don Norman’s framework)
I think that one of the limiting factors for adoption of a new sprinkler system is the user interface. Folks are used to all forms of clunky dials and pins, and most irrigation folks I show OS to cringe when they see it… how can you run a sprinkler system with that? While we geeks are happy with a certain style of interaction, the rest of the world has an entirely different “conceptual model” of irrigation (mostly, just set it and forget it)
You can take an online course from Donald Norman for free at https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to-the-design-of-everyday-things–design101
One other addition might be to adjust a program’s timing per zone. Have a button to increase or decrease the amount of time by a percentage (not absolute seconds). If we did this, I would also like to keep a history of how the program was adjusted. (On Weds, someone increased the watering on the trees by 20%).
keep it up…
Tom