Professional Looking UI And Better User Experience

Founded in 1984, NKE Marine Electronics develops and sells a range of electronic measuring instruments and autopilots for cruising and competition boats. NKE Marine Electronics equips many prestigious racing boats that participate in: the America cup, the Solitaire du Figaro, the Route du Rhum, the Mini Transat, the Vendée Globe, the Atlantic Cup… NKE is located in France in the heart of the Sailing Valley near Lorient.

Picture: Pierre Bouras – L’OCCITANE en Provence

challenge

Modernization Of Graphic Design While Reducing Development Complexity

NKE Marine Electronics previously developed a multi-function display with a monochrome display and they wanted to upgrade the product with a more attractive and intuitive user interface using a larger colorful display. NKE rapidly discovered that modern user interface design is a complex task and solutions provided by MicroEJ would help a lot in reaching their goals: keep the electronic simple and robust while accessing modern software technologies.

MicroEJ in action

MicroEJ Met NKE Marine Electronic’s Top 3 Expectations

Quality of the graphical interface

The graphical interface aspect in electronic products has become very important to drive new sales in every industry and especially in the sailing market.

Thanks to MicroEJ Virtual Device and its simulation capabilities NKE engineers were able to prototype and to find the intuitive way of informing sailors with complex data. The featured rich UI library allowed them to design unique graphical widgets, fully dedicated to their concerns.

Reduce the product development time, generating better productivity

MicroEJ development tools allowed NKE to:

Reuse 100% of the legacy software code from the older version
Remove software development from project critical path thanks to code simulation while hardware was being designed

Long term product support

Product on boats are usually long life-time products. Products marketed by NKE have a lifespan of more than 10 years and thanks to the industrial grade platforms provides by MicroEJ, NKE is able to maintain their software platforms and applications and to release upgrades as boat electronic instrument systems are evolving.

“Thanks to MicroEJ great user interface we were able to meet the demand of users who criticized our sailing instruments for not being sexy enough. We felt the effect directly on our turnover!”

Paul FRAISSE, Managing Director at NKE Marine Electronics

Benefits

Multigraphic benefits from MicroEJ

The new Multigraphic product with a colorful display only took 7 months to design the electronics and the application software including the feature-rich graphical user interface.
The positive effect on turnover was immediately felt as NKE has attracted new customers after adding new Graphical User Interface (GUI) and advance functionality.

Product overview

Multigraphic characteristics

5.7’’ LED colour screen.
Wide 160° reading angle
Low consumption thanks to a luminosity sensor.
NMEA input and monitor page.