STM32 Journal - Digikey

STM32 Journal
a developer’s isolated position
behind his or her lab bench.
For example, while it may be
logical to a developer to group
functions based on what part of
the system they impact, users
will interact with devices based
on what they want it to do. If the
function a person wants to use
most frequently is buried under
a series of icons, the overall
experience will be frustrating. The
UI has become the core factor
determining the user experience.
In today’s market where
consumers have become quite
sophisticated, a poorly designed
GUI can mean failure for a product
regardless of its other qualities.
The reality is that developers
don’t always know how
perspective users will try to
interact with a system. Ideally,
the hardware should not come
between users and how they
want to use the device. In
addition, to keep the interface
from being cluttered and difficult
to navigate, the screen needs
to display as little information
as possible while still displaying
enough data to allow the user
to easily and quickly make
decisions. Tappable UI objects/
elements must also be of a
minimum size but yet also
comfortable to select.
The placement of icons and
ordering of GUI elements is, at
least at first, a fairly arbitrary
process. However, a slider may
end up being in an inconvenient
location or be improperly sized
for reasons that couldn’t be
predicted during initial design
stages. This won’t be clear until
users are actually given a chance
to use the interface.
Designing an effective GUI
involves many such intangible
considerations that require direct
feedback. With limited screen real
estate, the UI must be selective
and display only content that is
relevant to the choices a user
is currently considering. The
application’s main function should
be accessible quickly upon startup
and always simple to return to.
The final test for an intuitive GUI
is that it must be obvious to users
how to use it efficiently without a
steep learning curve or more than
a few minutes of training.
It may take extensive testing
with users for developers to
understand how the GUI should
be laid out. This likely won’t
happen after bringing in just a
single focus group but rather
will involve many rounds that
iteratively improve the ease-ofuse
of the interface. The design
schedule needs to take into
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