Structural approach to design user interface

The analysis of the interactive relations among interface elements using a structuralized method can help user interface designers to satisfy the different requirements of design and improve design efficiency. This study develops a three-stage structured user interface design approach for complex information systems consisting of multiple components. First, the Quality Function Development (QFD) approach is used to confirm the user's design demand and its mapping components. Next, the Interpretive Structural Model (ISM) technique is adopted to construct a clear model of a hierarchical structure. Finally, the Impact Matrix Cross-Reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification (MICMAC) approach is employed to analyze the effect and dependence among the overall design components, and to consider the relationship network graph of distribution of components in the system. The research approach applies the Web mail system as its case study. Through the empirical study of web-based system, interface designers can effectively grasp a user's differentiated demand that changes rapidly and reflect it in the combination of designed components. This study establishes a strategy for creating an information system design pattern with multiple components is by building a hierarchical structure and analyzing the component distribution.     

Effective affective user interface design in games

It is proposed that games, which are designed to generate positive affect, are most successful when they facilitate flow (Csikszentmihalyi 1992). Flow is a state of concentration, deep enjoyment, and total absorption in an activity. The study of games, and a resulting understanding of flow in games can inform the design of non-leisure software for positive affect. The paper considers the ways in which computer games contravene Nielsen's guidelines for heuristic evaluation (Nielsen and Molich 1990) and how these contraventions impact on flow. The paper also explores the implications for research that stem from the differences between games played on a personal computer and games played on a dedicated console. This research takes important initial steps towards defining how flow in computer games can inform affective design.     

点阵式LCD菜单式用户界面的设计

文章介绍了在9寸点阵式LCD上进行菜单式用户界面的设计,给出了实现菜单式中文用户界面的设计方法,参数的输入显示和内部参数动态显示的程序流程图,以及光标显示、移动的程序设计及其流程图。     

Effective affective user interface design in games

It is proposed that games, which are designed to generate positive affect, are most successful when they facilitate flow (Csikszentmihalyi 1992). Flow is a state of concentration, deep enjoyment, and total absorption in an activity. The study of games, and a resulting understanding of flow in games can inform the design of non-leisure software for positive affect. The paper considers the ways in which computer games contravene Nielsen's guidelines for heuristic evaluation (Nielsen and Molich 1990) and how these contraventions impact on flow. The paper also explores the implications for research that stem from the differences between games played on a personal computer and games played on a dedicated console. This research takes important initial steps towards defining how flow in computer games can inform affective design.     

Applying visual psychophysics to user interface design

Abstract

Electronic displays are ubiquitous as the interface between people and computers. By far the most important perceptual sense used to interpret and analyse information provided by such displays is vision. This area has a vast and distinguished history, stretching back through names as eminent as Da Vinci, Descartes, Newton, Helmholtz and Young; this makes a thorough review of the area impossible in the space available here. Instead this review is limited to those areas of perception relevant to users of electronic displays. The purpose of this paper is to make designers of user interfaces aware of certain issues in visual perception and to provide a discussion of what psychophysics has to offer interface design.     

Formal models for user interface design artefacts

There are many different ways of building software applications and of tackling the problems of understanding the system to be built, designing that system and finally implementing the design. One approach is to use formal methods, which we can generalise as meaning we follow a process which uses some formal language to specify the behaviour of the intended system, techniques such as theorem proving or model-checking to ensure the specification is valid (i.e., meets the requirements and has been shown, perhaps by proof or other means of inspection, to have the properties the client requires of it) and a refinement process to transform the specification into an implementation. Conversely, the approach we take may be less structured and rely on informal techniques. The design stage may involve jotting down ideas on paper, brainstorming with users etc. We may use prototyping to transform these ideas into working software and get users to test the implementation to find problems. Formal methods have been shown to be beneficial in describing the functionality of systems, what we may call application logic, and underlying system behaviour. Informal techniques, however, have also been shown to be useful in the design of the user interface to systems. Given that both styles of development are beneficial to different parts of the system we would like to be able to use both approaches in one integrated software development process. Their differences, however, make this a challenging objective. In this paper we describe models and techniques which allow us to incorporate informal design artefacts into a formal software development process.     

Trade-off decision making in user interface design

The way in which designers choose between alternatives in user interface design can affect both the design process and also the quality of the outcome, i.e., the user interface. However, little is known about the knowledge drawn on during, or the processes that guide, the choice between design alternatives. This paper presents the results of an empirical study aimed at modelling 'trade-off decision making' in user interface design. It is argued that a single abstract vocabulary can capture important aspects of the rich knowledge drawn on during design problem solving. It is also argued that designers' reasoning during 'choice episodes' is not sophisticated. In choosing between alternatives in design, designers invariably limit the range, or nature, of the alternatives considered. The implications of this finding are discussed.     

支持Web软件用户界面自动生成的交互模型

讨论了Web软件用户界面的特点,提出了适应这些特点的界面交互模型;该模型用图形化的方式表达用户与软件界面之间的交互任务,并定义这些任务与相应域对象之间的关联;该模型支持Web应用界面代码的自动生成。     

DUET — A database user interface design environment

The DUET database user interface management system aims to help database application programmers to create, modify, and maintain interactive graphical user interfaces for different applications. DUET supports the creation of a complete user interface via direct manipulation techniques. It provides a large set of database widgets which are necessary for database applications. DUET provides facilities to step through the validation of a created user interface. A user interface can be saved as C code which can be integrated into a database backend. In this paper, the features and the architecture of DUET are presented.     

JSD and the design of user interface software

Systems analysis and design methods (SADMs), such as Jackson system development (JSD), have been proposed as a means of improving software quality. This is contrasted with the role of improving software usability proposed for human factors (HF). The paper argues the need for an explicit user interface specification stage in system development to ensure the usability of proposed systems. It is suggested that JSD supplemented by the specialist knowledge of HF can support such a specification stage. For HF and JSD to be successfully integrated, contributions from both need to be appropriately timed and structured. A model of the system development process that incorporates HF contributions is proposed. A means by which the HF contributions, in the form of a user interface specification, can be integrated with the JSD specification is developed and illustrated through examples.     

A semiotic engineering approach to user interface design

Designing software involves good perception, good reasoning, and a talent to express oneself effectively through programming and interactive languages. Semiotic theories can help HCI designers increase their power to perceive, reason and communicate. By presenting some of the results we have reached with semiotic engineering over the last few years, we suggest that the main contributions of semiotic theory in supporting HCI design are: to provide designers with new perceptions on the process and product of HCI design; to bind together all the stages of software development and use, giving them a unique homogeneous treatment; and to pose innovative questions that extend the frontiers of HCI investigations.     

Content and Web services converge: a unified user interface

The smart phone is thus a new class of computing device, correspondingly demanding a new class of user interface. The smart phone is truly personal t's carried by just one individual and at all times. However, we need to personalize it not only for the individual user but also for the wireless operator delivering a custom bundle of wireless services. The new UI must be easy to customize, update, and maintain. We propose a new UI solution in which the Web browser broadens its role beyond browsing external content to also function as the handset UI. Seen in context, this is only the next step in the continuing evolution of today's wireless ecosystem. Here we describe trends in mobile Web browsing that culminate in the browser as the handset UI.     

An approach for supporting distributed user interface orchestration over the Web

Currently, a lot of the tasks engaged by users over the Web involve dealing with multiple Web sites. Moreover, whilst Web navigation was considered as a lonely activity in the past, a large proportion of users are nowadays engaged in collaborative activities over the Web. In this paper we argue that these two aspects of collaboration and tasks spanning over multiple Web sites call for a level of coordination that require Distributed User Interfaces (DUI). In this context, DUIs would play a major role by helping multiple users to coordinate their activities whilst working collaboratively to complete tasks at different Web sites. For that, we propose in this paper an approach to create distributed user interfaces featuring procedures that are aimed to orchestrate user tasks over multiple Web sites. Our approach supports flexible process modeling by allowing users to combine manual tasks and automated tasks from a repertoire of patterns of tasks performed over the Web. In our approach, whilst manual tasks can be regarded as simple instructions that tell users how to perform a task over a Web site, automated tasks correspond to tools built under the concept of Web augmentation (as it augments the repertoire of tasks users can perform over the Web) called Web augmenters. Both manual and automated tasks are usually supported by specific DOM elements available in different Web sites. Thus, by combining tasks and DOM elements distributed in diverse Web sites our approach supports the creation of procedures that allows seamless users interaction with diverse Web site. Moreover, such an approach is aimed at supporting the collaboration between users sharing procedures. The approach is duly illustrated by a case study describing a collaborative trip planning over the Web.     

Low-effort, high-payoff user interface reengineering

Although increasingly sophisticated design methodologies for developing new user interfaces exist, low-effort, high-payoff user interface reengineering represents a new direction-and opportunity. Yet reengineering a working system is complex and risky because of the potential disruption to users and managers, their justifiable fear of change, and the lack of guarantees that such changes will be for the better. Our largely positive experiences with the projects described here lead us to believe that user interface reengineering is a viable and important process. Low effort, high-payoff improvement recommendations can probably be made for most existing systems. Nevertheless, a narrowly focused user interface reengineering plan may be inappropriate when the major problems lie outside the scope of the user interface, such as inadequate functionalities, frequent crashes, and network problems. Attempts at improving less severe problems while ignoring deeper ones may be perceived as insensitive by the users. In such cases it is important to consider either making similar short-term improvements for other parts of the systems or postponing short-term user interface reengineering in favour of a more complete system reengineering. Similarly, the need for interface stability might outweigh the benefits of the short-term improvements if a complete reengineering is planned for the near future. But most likely these proposed diagnostic strategies and opportunities for improvement are only a prelude to the much larger task of business reengineering, which implies extensive user interface reengineering     

Representation still matters: cognitive engineering and user interface design

With the increased utilization of cognitive models for designing user interfaces several disciplines started to contribute to acquiring and representing knowledge about users, artifacts, and tasks. Although a wealth of studies already exists on modeling mental processes, and although the goals of cognitive engineering have become quite clear over the last decade, essential epistemological and methodological issues in the context of developing user interfaces have remained untouched. However, recent challenging tasks, namely designing information spaces for distributed user communities, have led to a revival of well known problems concerning the representation of knowledge and related issues, such as abstraction, navigation through information spaces, and visualization of abstract knowledge. All of these issues are associated with mental processes and thus, might become part of cognitive models. In this paper we reveal epistemological and methodological assumptions in the field of cognitive modeling as well as their implications for user interface design. It turns out that in order to achieve the goal of developing human-oriented (in contrast to technology-driven) human-computer interfaces developers have to develop knowledge of the structure and the representational dynamics of the cognitive systems which are interacting with the computer. We show that in a first step it is necessary to study and investigate the different levels and forms of representation that are involved in the interaction processes between computers and human cognitive systems. We propose a hybrid user modeling approach as part of the task-based development procedure in TADEUS (Task Analysis/Design/End User Systems). The hybrid approach does not only enable the representation of functional roles end users have to perform, but also how end users perform these roles, i.e. the representation and reflection, if not prediction of their behavior. This way, holistic system development that equally takes into account the organizational requirements and the end user reality at work places is facilitated.