Welcome to the eighth instalment of Meet Your Maker with Tim Harbour, Calrec's UI/UX Designer. So, what is GUI design, and why should we care?
1. What is GUI design, and how do you approach it?
The starting point for everything we design is to focus on our customers' needs: how they use our products and what they need to do with them. Our products should help them do a better job.
Context is important, so when someone is setting up a show or configuring a system, we focus on what they need at that point. When someone is in the middle of mixing a sports event or a news broadcast, we think about what they need at that moment, so the things they need are close to hand and easy to access at the right time.
We try to balance the needs of our different users, their different business needs and varying requirements at different times.
There are also ergonomic factors like the sizes of buttons, visibility of text, and ensuring there's consistency with the design of our physical products and with the DNA of our older products.
Our aim is to make everything as simple, clear and easy to use as we can, without losing any of the flexibility and power that Calrec products are known for.
2. We read a lot about the User Interface (UI) and the User Experience (UX). Which one is more relevant to Calrec, or is it not that simple?
It's not that simple. UI and UX are really closely related.
User interface (UI) design tends to be about the things we display on screen, and the finer detail of what those things look like and how they behave. Keeping everything intuitive and consistent across all Calrec products is important, but the UI design is just one part of the overall user experience (UX).
UX design encompasses much more. It's about listening to the people who use our products and finding elegant solutions to address their needs and producing products that live up to our values.
It's said that when design is really good, you hardly notice it at all. A good UX helps people do what they need to do. A great UX vanishes while doing it.
So it's both - you can't have a great UX without a great UI. They are both critical to provide our customers with the best possible experience when they use a Calrec product.
3. How does colour affect the user experience? Do you account for colour-blind or otherwise visually impaired people?
We use colour very intentionally at Calrec. We use colour to reflect different areas of functionality and that helps people quickly identify where they are and what different parts of the UI do.
This can create a challenge for some people because it can be difficult to tell the difference between things. Between five and 10% of people that use Calrec products will have some sort of colour vision deficiency, so one of the ways we continue to improve is by not relying solely on colour to communicate meaning.
A common example is to use red or green to represent on and off. It might seem logical to show off in red, and on in green. One small change, such as displaying a check mark in the on state, will help communicate on without relying only on colour. This example would be particularly helpful for people with a red/green colour impairment, but it actually helps everyone.
A lot of our work to improve accessibility is like that. Making sure that text is readable and understandable helps everybody that uses our products, not just people with accessibility needs. We are continually improving the accessibility of our UI design, so you'll be seeing more of these improvements come through.
4. How has the way Calrec users interact with mixing consoles changed? Where do you see this going in the future?
The adoption of AoIP has prompted many changes, but it has made the patching and configuration side of things a lot more flexible, more powerful, and much more complex. In the past, we would have a finite and carefully managed number of connections. The advent of IP has created effectively infinite and infinitely flexible connectivity, so our customers now have a whole new set of needs that come along with that.
Finding things easily becomes much more important. Making sense of large and complicated networks and managing that complexity becomes much more important, and all the while we need to maintain the key things that make Calrec products easy to use in operation.
We're working hard to bring that trademark Calrec sense and ease-of-use to increasingly complex and powerful environments.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
16/07/2026
June brought stabilization to the television market. Poles spent an average of 3 hours and 36 minutes a day in front of their TV screens exactly the same as i...
16/07/2026
Glensound returns to IBC with a major new addition to its intelligent loudspeaker range, the Greater Divine Supernal studio monitor, alongside recent developmen...
16/07/2026
33 leading exhibitors are taking part in the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Pavilions and linked locations across IBC2026 (Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September)...
16/07/2026
Hitomi Broadcast will introduce Spectra, a new HDR colour verification solution measured in picture, not using VPID, at IBC2026 (Hall 10, Stand A40). Expanding ...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Zixi, a leader in live video delivery and workflow orchestration, and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) today announced a strategic new integration to deliver ...
16/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Capture Immersive Flight for New Cirrus App
Brie Clayton July 15, 2026
0 Comments
Leader in Personal Aviation taps URSA Cin...
16/07/2026
XenData Announces LTO Archive Appliances with both File and S3 Object Storage In...
16/07/2026
Fox Corporation Executives to Discuss Fourth Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2026 F...
16/07/2026
More interfaces now compatible with Focusrite Control 2 Your Focusrite interface might now be compatible with a public beta support of Focusrite Control 2. If...
16/07/2026
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is coming to GeForce NOW at launch, with the playable...
16/07/2026
Together the semi-finals had a combined reach of 1.98 million unique individuals...
15/07/2026
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is a big deal for DAZN, which has distribution rights in three markets: Italy, Spain, and Japan. Each requires a different editorial app...
15/07/2026
As sports-media organizations manage rapidly growing content libraries and incre...
15/07/2026
HBS director of digital Johannes Franken talks SVG Europe through the operation built to serve FIFA World Cup 2026 rights holders remotely from Stratford, east ...
15/07/2026
IBC has unveiled the conference program for IBC2026, with this year's event ...
15/07/2026
Software-defined wideband RF platform supports 96-kHz monitoring, streamlined fr...
15/07/2026
New AI-powered module enables broadcasters and content owners to extract dialogu...
15/07/2026
Weeklong gathering at EBU headquarters will test new IPMX capabilities and expand certified product ecosystem...
15/07/2026
Force Tech has announced the appointment of Bryan Adams, CTS, as Vice President of Integration. Adams will oversee AV and broadcast integration project delivery...
15/07/2026
USA Sports has announced an exclusive English-language agreement with the Bundes...
15/07/2026
ITV Sport's FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage has been produced from one of the m...
15/07/2026
Program will provide professional camera kits, training, and technical support to participating local newsrooms...
15/07/2026
San Francisco church becomes first U.S. deployment of the 2 M/E production switcher...
15/07/2026
Former ESPN and NFL Network executive to advise startup league on media, distribution, technology, and fan engagement...
15/07/2026
The Houston-based RSN is the live-game home of the Astros and Rockets...
15/07/2026
Launched alongside new FreqSoft installer
Designed to bridge the gap between hardware and software, Freqport's FreqInOut FO1 unit provides a simple way ...
15/07/2026
Save up to 55% on software until 23 July 2026
Expressive E have just launched their Summer Offer sale, with discounts of up to 55% now applied across their ...
15/07/2026
Real-time stem-separation tool updated
zplane have recently released a new and improved version of their real-time stem-separation plug-in which they say ma...
15/07/2026
A new benchmark in bass enhancement
Described as a new benchmark in bass enhancement , Baby Audio's latest release has been designed to augment the lo...
15/07/2026
DMC Production's AR 1 and AR 2 units reverse the conventional OB workflow, keeping all production-critical processing at the venue while operators work remo...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
GigaCloud, a leading Ukrainian cloud service provider, and Cubbit, the first geo-distributed cloud storage enabler, today announced a new Business Alliance Part...
15/07/2026
SMPTE, the global society for media professionals, technologists, and engineers, has announced the launch of the SMPTE 110th Anniversary Campaign, a fundraising...
15/07/2026
Studio Technologies, a leading manufacturer of high-quality audio, video, and fiber-optic solutions, unveils the new StudioComm Model 762 Stereo Level Control, ...
15/07/2026
COW Jobs: Producer, Virtual Events - Hybrid, Full Time, Salaried
Brie Clayton July 15, 2026
0 Comments
Producer, Virtual Events (Hybrid | Full-time | ...
15/07/2026
Brazilian media organization builds nationwide CDN with Broadpeak's high-performance software for low-latency streaming and new content distribution service...
15/07/2026
DHD announces a new utility designed to increase the efficiency of its audio mixing systems during initial installation and subsequent configuration.
Anyone w...
15/07/2026
BCNEXXT Brings Next-Generation Vipe to IBC2026, Breaking the 1:1 Channel-to-Server Ratio New innovations liberate broadcasters from legacy playout infrastructur...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Welcome to the eighth instalment of Meet Your Maker with Tim Harbour, Calrec's UI/UX Designer. So, what is GUI design, and why should we care?
