Objective The user interface of anesthesia ventilator is the interface of the human-machine interaction, and the most direct reflection of the performance. To take both the cost performance and the clarity of the interface into account, the user interface of anesthesia ventilator based on embedded Linux and the graphical user interface MiniGUI was designed. Methods According to the working principle and functional requirements of anesthesia ventilator, a layer scheme was used in the overall software design. We adopted modular design to implement the interface display layer, considering the reasonable display of the content and efficient utilization of the resources. Results The system ran on the platform of AT91RM9200 successfully and the results indicated that this system worked well and the user interface was natural, friendly and easy to operate. Conclusions This user interface design might have great practical importance and value in the interface of the human-machine interaction.