NI Circuit Design Community Blog
-
bikeron
on:
New International Rectifier Components in Multisim 14.0
-
giondoo77
on:
Creating Custom Arduino Shields With NI Multisim
- robo_Jeff on: Multisim Touch for iPad Now Available
-
doa4378
on:
New Models for Photovoltaic Cells in Multisim
- Mahmoud_W on: Connectors for NI 78xxR Multifunction RIO series in Multisim
- Mahmoud_W on: Search for Components in Digi-Key's Database While Building Your Circuit in Multisim
- BMac on: Ultiboard Mating PCB Design of the new NI GPIC Platform for Energy Applications
-
Henry_Lavery
on:
Automotive Application: Hall Effect Sensor in Multisim
- GarretF on: LabVIEW-Multisim Co-Simulation with Variants and Hierarchical Blocks (Part 2)
-
Control_Dir
on:
Adding 3D Information in Ultiboard
Importance of Ease-of-Use in Design Tools
As engineers, purchasing a design tool is (in general) first and foremost an exercise in reviewing technical specifications versus cost. The tool must a) meet our design needs and b) do so at a reasonable cost. But just as important (and often overlooked) is that the tool (which provides the framework for our final design) must also be easy-to-use and intuitive. Recognizing that an intuitive working environment provides leverage to increase the time-to-market of a design, we see that it is indeed an essential requirement in the purchase of a tool. An intuitive environment allows designers to focus on their expertise (design) instead of wasting valuable time finicking with a poorly thought-out environment.
It's just as Abraham Lincoln famously said, "Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four hours sharpening the axe". He reconized the power of not just having the right tool, but of having a tool that would facilitate peak performance. And selecting the right tool doesn't mean having the potential to perform a particular function; it's also necessary that it's easy to actualize this function within your design. Owning an overly-complex tool whose features require signifant ramp-up time to use is akin to having unactualized potential - it doesn't take you very far in producing high-quality designs or rapid prototypes.
In the next few blog posts, myself and Garret (a software developer here at NI) would like to to highlight some of the ways that Multisim's graphical simulation environment is able to abstract away the complexities of traditional electronics design, without sacrificing any of the powerful functionality required to enable the production of your designs or prototypes. Although wrapped in a clean and simple interface that doesn't require knowledge of SPICE, advanced users can access more complexity in their tasks on-demand if they are so interesed (and we will show you how!). This ability to work at a higher lever in an intuitive, easy-to-use environment expedites the design process, while still being able to access the lower-level complexity that advanced users would like to tweak.
Read more posts in this series:
