My Home Screen 10”
MyHOME, a revolutionary graphical interface for BTicino home automation products.
The request
BTicino, a market leader in domotics, wanted to partner with us to prototype a revolutionary graphical interface to put the user in full control of their range of home automation products.
High priorities included an attractive visual design, high levels of usability and rich customization options.
Part of the challenge was to take advantage of existing graphical design and branding to minimize design costs.
Challenges faced
- Develop a user interface based on client guidelines and refine it through multiple iterations
- Manage the complex logic of a large number of peripherals and combinations
Solutions implemented
- Automated unit and integration tests contributed to stability of the final product
- A user interface focused on the requirements of the client and user
The requirements
- Create a pleasing and usable user interface
- Permit a high level of customization
- Reuse as logic and code from an existing interface
Develer’s contribution
- Quickly produced prototypes that can be built open and used as a basis for feedback
- Introduced Qt Quick to enable flexibility, performance and innovation
- Created automated unit and integration test suite
Results
- Reduced testing time
- High levels of usability and flexibility
- Highly maintainable code base
Advantages of our solution
- Rapid prototyping
- High level of automated test coverage
- Rapid adaptation to changing specifications
- High performance on target hardware
- Development on desktop, deployment and testing on embedded hardware
Do you need an amazing GUI for your products?
Advantages of our methodology
The test suite developed for the previous generation of the project was leveraged and expanded upon for the new version. This enabled us to build the new interface with minimal regression and reusing existing code enabled us to minimize turnaround and testing time.
The use of the client’s own tools and our fully transparent workflow enabled us to integrate perfectly with BTicino’s internal team. Working this way avoided the need for excessive documentation or technical specification and much of the collaboration was accomplished through simple screenshots or mockups. This enabled constant feedback and rapid iteration.
Advantages of open source
Open source is a fundamental part of the graphical user interface of the MyHome suite of products. BTicino has taken advantage of free software such as Qt, a framework with which Develer has based numerous projects on. Taking this approach to an extreme, the source code for the interface is available for anyone to download, a unique competitive advantage in the market.
BTicino and Develer have together contributed patches to some of these libraries, such as Qt and Maliit.
What’s more, the availability of the source and resulting flexibility of the user interface has enabled the creation of a thriving and passionate community.
Client
Global specialist for the electric and digital infrastructures of the building
Staff
“In Develer I met a young, dynamic and highly qualified group of people always up for a challenge. Develer’s contribution was key in obtaining the results we did.”