The Future of Graphical User Interfaces

Efficient GUI Design Experience Flow with Microchip Graphics Suite (MGS)

- By Bill Li, Graphics and Vision Applications Manager, Microchip Technology's MPU32 Business Unit

In today's embedded systems landscape, designing compelling and user-friendly Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) is not a luxury, it's a necessity. From consumer electronics and industrial machinery to healthcare devices and aerospace control panels, users expect responsive, visually engaging interfaces that enhance their experience.

Achieving these goals can be challenging for both UI/UX designers and embedded engineers, both of which are critical to creating modern GUIs. Typically, these two distinct groups of creators operate in vastly different domains. The former is focused on visual aesthetics while the latter is more attentive to functionality and hardware integration.

Tools that seamlessly serve both creator groups minimize the complexity of the development process and accelerate product time-to-market. Microchip Technology developed Microchip Graphics Suite (MGS), a comprehensive solution to bridge this gap, enabling a more efficient GUI design experience. The result is a streamlined workflow where static design elements and dynamic interactive features come together seamlessly in the final product.

This article explores how the MGS Client Experience Flow, illustrated in Figure 1, improves GUI development for embedded systems. We will focus on how MGS Composer and MGS Simulator work together to empower designers and engineers, enabling them to create polished, user-friendly GUIs more quickly and efficiently than ever before.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A UNIFIED GUI DEVELOPMENT WORKFLOW