InterUnit-UI for improved PC ergonomics
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 InterUnit-UI.
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 an engagement-manager, several generally useful pop-up InterUnits and a source-code editor InterUnit for developing an 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-Frame
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 Menu.
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.
- Ctrl-H always brings up the current InterUnit's UI conventions.
- Tapping Ctrl always brings up an InterUnit's onscreen controls.
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
We will license the InterUnit-UI SDK to developers, organisations and PC OEMs.
Individual Developer Licenses
Annual subscription: $99/year.
Team Licences
Annual Subscription: $199 / year
OEM Licences
Negotiated licensing on a per seat basis.
SUpport for other platforms
After the wxWidgets SDK, we plan to release native versions
Copyright Khitchdee Design (OPC) Private Limited 2025
Product launch event Oct. 31, check back here