GUI harmonization for CALM from DEUTZ AG

In spring 2023, CONZE supported the DEUTZ AG in harmonizing the user interface of its in-house application “CALM” - a data record management tool for engine development. By implementing individual corporate design elements, exchanging icons and creating reusable code styles, a GUI harmonization with facelift effect was achieved in a very short time.

To harmonize the CALM user interface, a style guide was created first. The basis were screen designs of the CALM main view and some dialogs, considering consistent rules for colours, sizes, margins and alignments. In addition, individual corporate design elements were defined that ensure that the DEUTZ AG is recognized in the application.

The applicability of the style guide was continuously coordinated with development and checked to ensure efficient implementation.

Based on the style guide, the user interface of the DEUTZ CALM application was revised. These include almost 40 views, consisting of the main view and several dialogs that vary in their complexity. The defined guidelines and the corporate design elements were implemented and some reusable styles were created in the code (buttons, text boxes, data grids, etc.). The future expansion of the CALM application with additional features and functions has thus been significantly simplified.

In order to give the UI harmonization a final facelift effect, the old icons were replaced with new ones. For this purpose, a modern icon style was designed in collaboration with a design agency. The result is an individual icon set of around 140 icons in a modern “out-lined style” with individual colour variants. The icons were initially delivered in ICO format to enable an uncomplicated exchange of the old ICO files in the code. In the second step, all icons were exported as SVG files to use to the more flexible format in the future.

We would like to thank everyone involved and are very happy about the successful and “harmonious” project!