We're demonstrating an app to specify our bicycle-trailer design on Friday, Jan 02.

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KHITCHDEE (an industrial-design company)

We specialise in ergonomic design.

We design land-vehicles and PCs.

KHITCHDEE (an industrial-design company)

We specialise in ergonomic design.

We design land-vehicles and PCs.

Lightweight bicycle-trailer

We have produced a lightweight bicycle-trailer design.

Attachment mechanism

The trailer attaches to the bicycle's rear-wheel spindle.

Dimensions and weight

It weighs about 14 kg, including a wheel weight of about 8 kg.

It could pull loads of up to 100 kg (220 lb) at a speed of about 10 km/hr (6 mi/hr).

It adds about 70 cm (28 in) to the length of the bicycle and 1m to the width.

Axle design

It has 2 axles, rigidly attached to the rear wheel spindle

via a single lightweight steel beam-set.

The attachment holes provide some space for axle rotation.

The wider axle is about 1m wide and rests on 16" wheels.

It's primary purpose is lateral balance.

The narrower axle is about 60 cm wide and rests on paired 14" wheels.

It is a weight-bearing axle and provide longitudinal stability

and shock-absorption.

Axle steering design

A specially designed steering cylinder is attached to the seat-tube.

It has a chain driven connection to the head tube via freewheels attached to both the head-tube and the steering cylinder.

This chain-drive transmits handle rotation at a certain gear-ratio to the rear steering cylinder.

Another freewheel attached to the steering cylinder

rotates to steer the axles.

Cargo carrying add-ons

A cargo-carrier can be attached to trailer-frame

using vertical support beams attached to the rear-wheel spindle, the wider axle and the narrower axle,

and an additional attachment point at the seat-post frame-corner.

We are producing a specification of this design.

Design description

Introduction

Alternative to the WIMP UI

The InterUnit UI-design approach

is a PC-UI alternative to

the WIMP-based UI-design approach

used on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Improved ergonomic-efficiency

It has been designed with the goal of improving the ergonomic-efficiency of PC-apps.

It uses several techniques to improve ergonomic-efficiency:

It does away away with the Menubar at the top, and the taskbar or status bar at the bottom of the screen, to reduce visual screen-clutter.
It uses a visual layout technique generally focused around the center of the screen for the presentation of any information to the user.
It minimizes the need to switch between mouse and keyboard operation in the course of any user-input sequence.
It eliminates use of the mouse for fine-grained screen-space selection and reduces the usage of mouse-drag operations.
It eliminates the use of windows. Operations such as resizing and aligning of windows, and, in general, window layout, are no longer needed in the usage of the UI.

The InterUnit-UI design approach

InterUnit-UI presents a user-interface

as a sequence of temporal interface-units called InterUnits.

Each InterUnit presents an interface behavior to service a specific user-goal.

It has full access to the screen and all user-input peripherals.

InterUnits can be independently optimized for ergonomic-efficiency.

A special InterUnit called the engagement-manager

interfaces with the underlying OS's WIMP window.

It serves as a front-end control for all InterUnits.

It loads and unloads other InterUnits

and manages the current engagement session with the user.

It also maintains some history of app usage.

The InterUnit-UI development SDK

We provide an SDK including 3 elements:

An EngagementManager class.
An abstract SInterUnit struct.
A Hex-navigator InterUnit.

This SDK can be used by developers

to build better desktop apps

and by PC-OEMs for building better OS front-ends.

Advantages over WIMP

WIMP backgrounder

The WIMP UI uses a desktop metaphor

for the front end of the UI.

The desktop includes a Titlebar at the top

and a Taskbar at the bottom

and Icons may be placed on the rest of the screen (the desktop).

The back end of the UI is the window-wrame

which is a controllable frame inside which an application runs.

windows may be ordered, tiled, resized, minimized, closed etc,

using their window-frames.

A Menu is placed either in the Titlebar (MacOS)

or in a titlebar inside a Window (Windows OS).

A Menu is a simple way to select actions to be performed.

InterUnit-UI does not use a desktop-metaphor,

with its associated icons and menus.

It does not use spatially laid-out windows

and it does not use multiple windows.

It does not use a point-click-drag mouse or touchpad

as a primary selection device.

Ergonomic efficiency

A WIMP app corresponds to an InterUnit.

The system provided aspects of WIMP, such as Windows Controls that encode some UI behavior but have a spatial association, can be thought of as applets or functional parts of an app that cater to UI functionality common across apps. A WIMP app is easy to produce because there is a palette of windows controls to choose from. But the ergonomics of these controls are fixed and the ergonomic aspects of using multiple sich controls in a single window has not been considered in their design process.

In an InterUnit-UI the WIMP app directly corresponds to an InterUnit.

The primary function of the app is implemented in this InterUnit,

The closest parallel to this in WIMP is a custom app that does its own drawing and implements its own keyboard and mouse event processing in its client area, such as a 3D game app.

An InterUnit-UI app is just an InterUnit and when it needs to, it unloads itself an loads an independently optimized accessory InterUnit for common app UI behavior. Every InterUnit is optimized for its UI ergonomics. Hence an InterUnit-UI app is always ergonomically efficient.

The 2 other advantages are

A simple development process
Minimal design conventions

Simpler Development Process

The InterUnit-UI SDK contains:

A library of structures functions and classes that use the wxWidgets library,

Source-code for a SourceEditor InterUnit.

An executable that runs the source-editor InterUnit inside an InterUnit-UI.

This executable can be used in conjunction with VisualStudio on Windows

and XCode on MacOS to develop an InterUnit that can run inside an InterUnit-UI app.

Minimal design conventions to maintain interface-consistency across InterUnits

The keyboard's Arrows are always used for vertical and horizontal navigation.
The ESCAPE key always exits the current InterUnit by popping it off the InterUnit-Stack. If the current InterUnit is the Primary-InterUnit, the app exits.

Simpler desktop-environment alternative

InterUnit-UI can be used as a simpler alternative to the desktop on a Linux OS distribution such as Ubuntu. It can be used as a desktop environment.

Licensing

Copyright and intellectual property related positions

Khitchdee Design is applying for copyright and intellectual property protection

for InterUnit-UI technology.

Our intellectual property attorneys are Mendelsohn Dunleavy, PC.

Whom we license to

We license the InterUnit-UI SDK to developers, organisations and PC OEMs.

Individual developers or development teams may use the InterUnit-UI SDK

to develop and deploy InterUnits inside Windows, MacOS or Linux apps.

Individual Developer Licenses

An individual developer may purchase a license for the InterUnit-UI SDK.

They may use the SDK to develop apps for Windows. MacOS and Linux.

Annual subscription: $99/year.

Team Licences

A small development team may also license the SDK.

A single team license may be used by all members of a team.

Annual Subscription: $199 / year

OEM Licences

OEMs may license the InterUnit-UI SDK

to develop UI front-ends for an PC or mobile OS.

These licenses are negotiated and on a per seat basis.

KHITCHDEE (an industrial-design company)

KHITCHDEE (an industrial-design company)

Lightweight bicycle-trailer

InterUnit-UI for improved PC ergonomics

Introduction

Advantages over WIMP

WIMP backgrounder

Ergonomic efficiency

Simpler Development Process

Minimal design conventions to maintain interface-consistency across InterUnits

Simpler desktop-environment alternative

Licensing

Copyright and intellectual property related positions

Whom we license to

Individual Developer Licenses

Team Licences

OEM Licences

Planned support for other platforms

After the wxWidgets SDK, we plan to release native versions

Contact Us

Email me at rohit.agarwal@khitchdee.net

Khitchdee Design (OPC) Private Limited

KHITCHDEE (an industrial-design company)

KHITCHDEE (an industrial-design company)

Lightweight bicycle-trailer

InterUnit-UI for improved PC ergonomics

Introduction

Advantages over WIMP

WIMP backgrounder

Ergonomic efficiency

Simpler Development Process

Minimal design conventions to maintain interface-consistency across InterUnits

Simpler desktop-environment alternative

Licensing

Copyright and intellectual property related positions

Whom we license to

Individual Developer Licenses

Team Licences

OEM Licences

Planned support for other platforms

After the wxWidgets SDK, we plan to release native versions

Contact Us

Email me at rohit.agarwal@khitchdee.net

Khitchdee Design (OPC) Private Limited

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