As an engineer supporting other engineers, I know the struggles of embedded graphical user interface (GUI) design. This article explores how GUI Guider helped my customers and I simplify development, reduce errors and deliver polished UIs faster—with a tool built for real-world embedded needs.
As a systems engineer with over seven years in embedded development—and several years supporting customers with GUI design—I've seen firsthand how challenging it can be to build GUIs for embedded systems. From memory constraints to integration headaches, GUI development has often been one of the most time-consuming and error-prone parts of a project.
That was true for me, too—until I started using GUI Guider.
Back when I first started working with GUIs, building them meant writing everything from scratch. I'd spend hours manually coding widgets, handling screen redraws and debugging touch input. Every small change required recompiling and flashing the board. It was slow, repetitive and frustrating, especially when supporting customers who needed fast turnarounds.
Even with powerful microcontrollers (MCUs), the lack of a streamlined GUI workflow often became a bottleneck.
When NXP released GUI Guider, I was immediately intrigued, especially because this was a free tool developed by NXP. GUI Guider is a visual design tool built on Light and Versatile Graphics Library (LVGL), with support for NXP's full range of edge processors. It sounded promising and it delivered.
I started using it for internal projects, then began recommending it to customers. The results were consistent: faster development, cleaner code and happier teams.
Engineer and streamline your graphical user interface. Explore GUI Guider and start building smarter GUIs today.
GUI Guider's drag and drop visual interface eliminated the need for repetitive coding, streamlining the entire GUI development process. Instead of writing boilerplate code for buttons, sliders and charts, I could:
This was especially helpful when working with customers who weren't embedded experts as they could contribute to the UI design without touching a line of code.
One of GUI Guider's greatest strengths is how well it integrates with NXP's toolchain. It generates LVGL-based C code that plugs directly into:
Moreover, it supports custom code injection, so I could add logic without worrying about it being overwritten during updates.
As someone who's worked on everything from industrial controllers to consumer devices, I appreciate how GUI Guider is optimized for embedded systems:
It's not just about making GUIs look good—it's about making them run efficiently on real hardware.
Over the years, I've supported dozens of teams building GUIs for embedded systems. Many of them started with the same frustrations that I had—slow development, hard-to-maintain code and limited design flexibility.
GUI Guider was a game-changer. It's more than just a tool—it's a complete workflow that empowers developers to build better interfaces, faster. Whether you're a solo engineer or part of a large team, it helps you focus on what matters most: delivering a great user experience.
If you're working on an embedded project and haven't tried GUI Guider yet, I highly recommend that you do.
Miguel Mendoza is an Electronic Engineer from UAG University. Since joining NXP, Miguel has transitioned into a dynamic role where he has become a key contributor to the development of graphics demos, technical content creation, and customer support across a wide range of projects, from startups to global companies. His journey at NXP has shaped him into a graphics expert, blending engineering precision with creative problem-solving.