Energy-efficient graphical user interface design

Mobile computing systems, such as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), have dramatically increased in sophistication. At the same time, the desire of consumers for portability limits battery size. As a result, many researchers have targeted hardware and software energy optimization. However, most of these techniques focus on compute-intensive applications; rather than interactive applications, which are dominant in mobile computing systems. These systems frequently use graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to handle human-computer interaction. This paper is the first to explore how GUIs can be designed to improve system energy efficiency. We investigate how GUI design approaches should be changed to meet tight energy budgets and demonstrate that energy-efficient GUI (E²GUI) design techniques can significantly improve energy efficiency.