Increased usability through user interface modification of development and education tools for embedded systems

Developing mechatronical and embedded systems is a complex topic, because expert knowledge in mechanics, electronics and software engineering is required. To assist in the development process, a variety of easy-to-use systems was developed. These systems are supposed to assist the developers during the development process. This is one possible approach. Another possible approach is, to start teaching school children and other non-professionals with teaching software, which helps them to understand the basics of the subject of mechatronical systems. But actually the best approach would be a combination of both of these systems. So it should assist the user in developing mechatronical systems, by being easy-to-use, on the first hand and it should teach the basic knowledge of mechatronical and embedded systems on the other hand. In this paper, a user interface design concept is presented, based on the embedded systems education system EasyKit Starter. First, the EasyKit Starter will be introduced, second, problems, which occurred during user tests, will be described and third, solutions for these problems are presented, including a possible implementation of selected aspects.