Appliance Design - November 2008 - (Page 30)

DISPLAYS Compelling Color Sample GUI for a household thermostat illustrates how an Amulet chip can help develop an interface with a more colorful and attractive appearance. Chip speeds development of upscale GUIs. I by brian deters and manohar kashyap Brian Deters is applications engineer and Manohar Kashyap is electric engineer, both at Amulet Technologies, Campbell, Calif. 30 applianceDESIGN November 2008 n a mature consumer electronics market, good engineering alone won’t guarantee a product’s success. To rise above the crowd and win over consumers, a product needs to offer something more: an engaging and appealing user interface. One can appreciate the power of advanced user-interface design by looking at Apple’s iPhone. The iPhone was not the first touchscreen smart phone, but it was the first to add the “wow” factor. The iPhone’s graphically rich, seductive, and simple user interface makes complex technology accessible to a younger, trend-seeking audience, not just the tech-savvy business professionals traditionally targeted by the segment. The iPhone raised the bar for graphical user interfaces (GUIs), and not just in the smart phone segment. Consumer expectations for high-end user interfaces are pushing electronics manufacturers to integrate colorful touch-screen GUIs in everything from clothes washers, microwave ovens, and air conditioners, to home lighting systems and automobiles. Designing in color is easy. Making it pop off the screen is not. Most OEMs have their hands full just trying to make all of their features work. They have limited time, resources, and expertise to undertake the arduous task of implementing a color GUI that pops. Traditionally, in the embedded space, the task of GUI design has fallen to the engineering department, not because engineers are good artists, but because bringing graphics to life on touch screens involves a significant writing of software. This accepted industry norm tends to exclude the very people capable of adding the “wow” — the graphic artists. For an engineer, taking an artist’s or marketing department’s vision and replicating it in a working GUI can feel like an exercise in futility. Questions concerning www.applianceDESIGN.com http://www.appliancedesign.com

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Appliance Design - November 2008 Contents Editorial Shipments/Forecasts News Watch Metals & Metal Parts Gas Technology Displays Quality & Standards New Products Design Marts Association Report: AHAM Advertiser's Index

Appliance Design - November 2008

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