UI design help and suggestion

[YungChewie]

That looks like a cool application! For my part, I have a couple of suggestions. Firstly, I don't think that "Measure" is a good name for the button that you have there. Think about exactly what functionality the program performs when it is in this mode. If it is data acquisition, then "Acquire Data" might be a better name.

It seems from the image that your program is recording some real-time data, including video and the monitoring of certain signals. Then, when you go into "Analyze" mode, the recording stops and you work on the data you have just gathered. Given this functionality, maybe you want to make the buttons look more similar to a DVD player: a "record" button (typically a red circle) for acquiring the data, a "stop" button (typically a black square) for halting the acquisition, a "play" button (a forward-pointing triangle) for playing it back, and then a magnifying glass or something for performing whatever analysis you are doing.

As an aside, the top portion of the interface reminds me of the Ribbon in MS Word. This is a good concept too, because when you are in a specific mode, only the buttons that are relevant to that mode will appear.

[KieBenJ54]

The person whose posted this phrase, I'm so thankful of him for this because it's so useful for me."I've always found them confusing because sooner or later you (the user) find yourself in a situation where you want to do something that you cannot do in the mode you are currently in; then you are forced to actively think on how you can accomplish your task without changing mode".