多位消费电子研究工程师在一场研讨会上一致认为，嵌入式系统开发向标准化平台发展的趋势将必定加快。其中的诸多原因，都在07年最具影响力的消费电子产品iPhone上体现了出来。

Smart Design公司交互设计总监Jason Smart认为iPhone是“以用户为中心的设计”的典型，响应了Tech Online总编Patrick Mannion关于iPhone是“软件设计和消费者体验的完美佳作”的说法。

Portelligent公司总裁David Carey把iPhone称作一个“玻璃驾驶舱”，其最卓越功能是“几乎完全消除了键盘的需要”，将用户引入其触摸屏的完美体验。他认为iPhone的成功让工程师重新考虑消费者使用电子设备的方式。

反过来，这又使得设计的重点从嵌入到产品的硬件，向能够实现应用并详细描述用户界面的软件转变。

Carey说，当他的公司在某个产品时，第一件事情就是带回家“让老婆和孩子测试一下”。他想知道它的用户界面是否能让他的技术知识相对欠缺的家人很快就能上手，而不需要求助于用户手册。他表示，在这样的测试中，很多产品都显现了很高的故障率，十有八九会出现“影响可用性的重大缺陷。”

关于这一点，LinuxWorks公司营销副总裁Robert Day援引了VCR的例子，将之称为一个无法通过“家人测试”的经典失败案例。他指出，有很多人从来都没有学过如何去设置他们的VCR，甚至连时间设置都不会。但是VCR的后继者TiVo却能够“在几分钟之内让小孩和非技术人员学会操作”。

Robert Day表示：“这是一个巨大的成功，而这都是软件带来的成果。它是一个开放式标准平台，不仅可靠，还带有一个一流的用户界面。”

国家仪器营销和客户运作副总裁John Graff举了另一个例子 － 为Lego设计的机器人玩具，来讲述软件是如何简化嵌入式系统以便于消费者使用的。他说，在开发一个孩子们必须能操作的界面时，精简的才是更好的。

Graff表示，在这些玩具取得成功之后，他提倡他的工程师要在非消费型产品的设计上开始采用不同的思考方式。“我们将这些产品的功能放到一个专业的环境中去验证。”

研讨会的与会人员一致认为，要简化一个电子产品以使之更简单易用，反而需要更复杂的软件设计。Smart说：“每个产品都有很多层功能，其中没有一个是紧密关联的。要解决这一问题，就需要另一个本身就很复杂的软件层让一个非常复杂的应用显得非常简单。”

Carey指出：“另一个导致向标准化平台过渡的趋势以及更多依靠软件的原因，就是产品的成本因素。随着芯片设计成本升高到一个极高的水平，工程师往往会习惯性地认为前一年的硬件设计是足够的，至少可以再用一年。为了降低成本，软件创新可以给旧芯片带来新活力。我们要摒弃那种认为产品内部硬件创新是成功关键的想法。”

他说：“工程师应该不停地问自己，在某款芯片设计真正过时之前，他们能使用多长的时间？”

另一个迫使设计人员必须将在硬件之上依赖软件程序的趋势，则是将不同产品集成到单个环境中的需要。研讨会的与会人员举了这么一个例子 － 汽车的仪表板：它正在快速向一个显示屏发展，显示从音频、视频、引擎诊断信息、卫星导航到交通警报的所有信息。要避免产生混乱，就必须设计出一套能够有效地将各个元件集成到一起的硬件。

国家仪器的Graff表示：“有很多产品虽然功能齐全，却无法满足快速上市的要求，除非能够将更多的重点放在软件设计上。”

回到iPhone这个话题上，Portelligent公司的Carey将摩尔定律和消费者进行了对比。他说：“按照摩尔定律，所有的数字式电子设备确实能每隔18个月就可在性能和功能上增长一倍，但是用户接受产品的步伐却跟不上。人的大脑机能不可能每18个月就增强一倍。”

他指出，当很多苹果在手机领域的竞争对手都千方百计要满足摩尔定律，以消费者无法接受其“创新”的速度推出大量新产品和新应用时，苹果却前进得“非常慢”，从iPhone问世以来仅仅推出了两到三款新版本。

他说：“苹果对此非常满意，因为iPhone的销量稳步提升，消费者也逐渐被带动起来。有时候你必须慢下来，才能酝酿下一次加速。”
 
 附英文全文
 
IPhone nudging embedded design toward standard

The trend toward standardized platforms for development of embedded systems is almost certain to accelerate, according to a panel of engineers who study consumer behavior. Many of the reasons for their conclusion are embodied in the most influential consumer device of the past year: Apple''s iPhone.

A panelist at the Embedded Systems Conference here this week, Jason Short, director of interaction design at Smart Design, referred to the iPhone as the epitome of "user-centered design." He echoed the words of moderator Patrick Mannion, editor-in-chief of Tech Online, who called the iPhone "a feat of software design and consumer enablement."

David Carey, who heads the "de-engineering" firm Portelligent, praised the iPhone poetically as a "glass cockpit" whose most significant feature was "almost dispensing fully with the keyboard" and directing the user toward the device''s touch-activated screen. The success of iPhone is influencing engineers to reconsider the way consumers use electronic devices, Carey said.

In turn, this reconsideration has shifted design emphasis away from hardware embedded in a device and toward software that enables applications and defines the user interface.

Carey said that when his company reviews a device, an initial step involves taking it home for "the wife and kids to test." He wants to see if the user interface allows his relatively non-technical family to engage with it immediately, without resorting to the user manual. He said the failure rate in this test is "abysmal." Nine of ten devices tend to pose "some significant wall to usability."

Elaborating on the "usability wall," Robert Day, vice president of marketing at LinuxWorks Inc., cited the VCR as a classic "wife-and-kids test" failure. Few people, he said, ever learned to program or even set the time on their VCR. The antidote to the VCR, however, is TiVo, said Day, which can be operated by children and "non-engineering folks within minutes."

"It''s a huge success and it''s all software. It''s an open-standard platform, it''s reliable and it has a good user interface."

As further example of using standard software to simplify an embedded system for consumer ease-of-use, offered by John Graff, vice president of marketing and customer operations at National Instruments, were robotic toys designed for Lego. When developing an interface that children must understand, "less is more," said Graff.

When the toys succeeded, said Graff, they prompted his engineers to think differently about designing non-consumer devices. "We were taking functions out of it and putting them into a professional environment."

The panelists agreed that simplifying an electronic device, to make it more user-friendly, tends ironically to require a higher level of complexity in software design. "There are layers of functions in devices," said Short, "and none of it is very coherent." The solution is another layer of software " complicated in itself " that "makes a very complex application seem very simple."

Another reason for shifting toward more standard platforms and a broader dependence on software, said Carey, is cost. "As chip design costs go really stratospheric," engineers are getting "used to the idea that last year''s hardware design is really adequate," at least for another year. For much less expense, he said, software innovations can breathe new life into old chips. "We need to abandon the notion that hardware innovation in the inside is the key to success."

Engineers should be asking, he added, "How long can I whip this horse before it really is out of date?"

A further trend forcing designers to layer over hardware with software applications is the need to integrate different devices in a single environment. The panelists'' example was the dashboard of a car, which is fast becoming a display screen, offering everything from audio and video to engine diagnostics, satellite navigation and traffic alerts. Designing hardware that effectively stitches together the various elements of this electronic dash in every make and model is a recipe for confusion.

Said Graff of National Instruments, "A range of devices, all functional in there, can''t meet time-to-market unless there is a measure of integration in those components," integration that requires "a lot more focus on design of software."

Circling back around to the genius of iPhone, Portelligent''s Carey compared Moore''s Law to its consumer alter ego, "Demi Moore''s Law." Although digital electronics can indeed double capacity and power every 18 months, said Carey, "the user''s ability to take on all this technology" can''t keep up. "Our brain does not double every 18 months."

He noted that while many of Apple''s competitors in the mobile phone industry struggle to keep pace with Moore''s Law, flooding the market with new models and new applications faster than consumers can absorb the "innovations," Apple has moved "very slowly," offering only two or three variations in its basic product since its inception.

"Apple is very satisfied to go very slowly, shipping its product and very slowly bringing the consumer along," he said. "Sometimes you have to slow down to speed up."

(转摘)