Next-Generation Security Interface
How Genetec is revolutionizing the user interface for security applications
Developing a unified user interface (UI) for multiple security and safety applications poses a unique puzzle to vendors: How do you efficiently display events, video, and control functionality for several applications within a single UI without overloading the operator? Genetec gracefully solves this dilemma with the Security Desk, its next-generation unified client application.
The Security Desk seamlessly merges monitoring and reporting for Genetec’s Omnicast IP video surveillance, Synergis IP access control, and Autovu IP License Plate Recognition (LPR) systems within a single interface. Through innovative security application-concepts such as operator-initiated tasks, a home menu, a dynamically adaptive interface, context-sensitive widgets, and the merging of similar concepts across products lines, operators are given the right functionalities to perform their duties at the right time, while removing unnecessary content that typically clutters an interface. Furthermore, the Security Desk’s simplicity increases operators’ confidence, allowing them to do more instinctively and with less effort.
As the centerpiece of the Security Center, Genetec’s Unified Security Platform, the Security Desk utilizes the very latest in UI development tools and usability concepts to provide operators with the most advanced user interface in the security market today. It represents the future of security and safety applications and it is available from Genetec.
Individual tasks layout
Redefining Security and Safety Applications: The Task-Oriented Approach
Every inch of the user interface is prime real-estate. How to effectively organize information is crucial to usability and the operator’s overall experience. Too much information leads to the operator being overloaded with live events and status information emanating from the system(s) being monitored. An abundance of command and control functionality will confuse operators and reduce their efficiency when multi-tasking. Furthermore, once you add several applications to monitor within the same UI such as video, access control, and LPR, the UI can quickly degenerate into an unusable application. The answer: Tasks.
A Task within the Security Desk is a new user interface design pattern that simplifies the UI by grouping related functionalities together. Similar to the “tabs” concept available with most popular web browsers today, a task is in fact a separate layout per operator function. Tasks can be specific reports, monitoring layouts, and much more. An added benefit of the task-oriented approach is that each task is designed with a specific task in mind, leaving out extraneous information of a particular activity. For example, a video motion search task does not need to include any access control functionality, thereby simplifying the interface for the operator.
An operator creates a task when he needs to, which once again reduces complexity. If the operator only needs to perform live monitoring, he does not need to see or launch tasks associated with reporting, or alarm management, or visitor management for example. Limiting what the operator sees in the UI does away with the traditional security approach of displaying every feature available within the security application.
More importantly, the operator chooses which task to focus on. Once launched, a task is added to the taskbar where multiple tasks are already loaded. The taskbar offers quick access to all running tasks. Clicking on a specific task brings forward all the functionalities available for that task, temporarily hiding all other tasks. This is similar to viewing multiple pages in your web browser and jumping from tab to tab. Through the taskbar, operators are then able to jump from task to task as needed rather than having all the functionalities available all the time through one view. Tasks can also be dragged to separate monitors when needed to further simplify the UI in multi-monitor applications. Lastly, the user workspace and tasks can be saved, allowing operators to quickly pick up where they left off the last time they used the Security Desk.
The Security Center's home menu. Click to view an expanded version.
The Home Menu: Efficient Grouping of Tasks
The home menu regroups all available tasks and provides quick access to operators to launch new tasks, much like the Start Menu of the most popular operating systems on the market. These include monitoring, access control, video, and LPR tasks. To further shorten the search for tasks to execute, tasks are grouped under categories, such as operation or investigation. Through privileges, an administrator can limit which tasks an operator has access to, further condensing the list of tasks that the operator has access to.
Dynamically Adaptive UI – Dashboard Widgets
Reducing the number of concepts operators have to work with can drastically improve how fast they learn to monitor and control the security system. Dynamically adapting the UI for the operator’s activities at a specific time de-clutters the UI and makes it more intuitive. More importantly, it is an automated process that requires no operator intervention and improves efficiency.
One new concept that allows the UI to dynamically adapt to what the operator is doing is the dashboard widget. Widgets are mini-applications (or mini-groupings) available in the Security Desk dashboard that let you perform common tasks and provide you with fast access to information and actions.
The PTZ camera widget provides PTZ controls when selecting a PTZ unit. Click on the picture to view more widget examples.
With a single click on an entity (e.g., door or camera) the specific widgets associated to each entity appear and disappear automatically and bring you a world of information such as door status, door unlock actions, camera stream information, camera PTZ controls, and more. If you click on a video display tile, all door-related functionalities disappear given that you have no need for it when your focus is on a camera.
Unified Access Control, Video, and LPR
Access and video integration is the latest trend in the security industry. End users are increasingly demanding integration between security and safety applications. The Security Desk goes one step further... it offers true unification.
A typical Security Desk display tile when access control is unified with video. The cardholder’s picture is overlaid on the video, allowing the operator to instantly validate if the right person accessed the area, either using live video or archived video.
In addition to access control, video, and LPR-specific tasks, the Security Desk is able to monitor the video, access control, and LPR systems from within the same monitoring task, thereby consolidating all monitoring within a single task. Moreover, each and every tile can display both access control and video information. As shown in the figure below, a cardholder’s picture with the video associated to the door can be displayed every time there is an access control activity.
Video-Centric vs. Access Control-Centric View: Neither and Both
So the question that begs to be asked is whether the Security Desk is videofocused or access-control focused. The answer is: Neither and both! In fact, the Security Desk can be personalized to look like a video application limited to display tiles, or it can be customized to look like a traditional access control application limited to an event list. It can also be both, displaying access control events as well as video tiles as shown in the picture below.
More importantly, each and every Security Desk task, whether reporting or monitoring tasks, can be customized. Operators have the ability to define what the tasks consist of: event list, display tiles, dashboard, widgets, and more. Virtually any function can be hidden or minimized to render tasks as simple or full-featured to meet the operator’s needs. Through user privileges and logical partitions, administrators can further define what entities (doors, cameras, LPR units) and tasks the operator has access to. As such, an operator who is only allowed to manage visitors will only see and have access to the visitor management task; all other tasks such as event and alarm monitoring and individual reports will be invisible, further simplifying the Security Desk and making the operator’s experience optimal.
