Help!

[sweet turret]

Hello! Im making UI for a diagnostic test software, I need help with my button section, it looks a bit goofy to me. Maybe i've been staring at it too long. Any way I can restructure this? This will live on a tablet.

Ill take any and all advice, software design like this is pretty difficult to research for. Any recommendations on references would be amazing as well!

PS. The grey rectangle is where my companies logo will go. so don't mind that

[tame panther]

before I make a suggestion, can you help us understand what you mean by diagnostic test software? who's the user here and what are they trying to do on this screen?

[sweet turret]

Hi yes! So it’s for testing batteries in the car industry. So it would be mechanics and technicians using this… this test is used to run 5 different tests (but the user can select the test prior because some tests need different configuration conditions)

[tame panther]

gotcha. How did you arrive at this button section design? what is it supposed to do? and what’s the issue with it?

[sweet turret]

Well I’m unsure if it looks correct… because there is hardly any references out there for this kind of design I’m at a loss of what’s important. I know the buttons start and go should go first but that’s about it

[tame panther]

ideally you would learn what’s important by talking to potential users about what they are trying to achieve with a diagnostic test, then shaping your UI around that “job” they are trying to accomplish. you could even ask users what software or tools they might currently use to run a diagnostic test

I don’t think the buttons look goofy personally—I think it makes sense that the start and stop buttons have the highest hierarchy (bc they’re colored in and ALL CAPS)—but it’s hard to get much deeper than that without understanding what your users want to get out of a software like this