The Importance of the User Interface The Essential

What is UI?
UI design is a subset of HCI
Part of a computer & its software that people can see, hear, understand, etc.
Two components: input & output
IO devices?

Is Good Design Important?
UI is the most important part of any computer system!
Over 50% of code devoted to UI
Users’ productivity improved 25 to 40%.
A company saved $20 000 !

What comprises good design?
PEOPLE:
How we see, understand, and think
INFORMATION:
Enhance human acceptance
Ease eye & hand movements
HARDWARE & SOFTWARE:
Capabilities & limitations of HCI

The Goals of UI Design
To make working with a computer
EASY
PRODUCTIVE
ENJOYABLE

Examples
Interface screen of Text Properties
Text Editor
Class registration form (lab #1)

14 steps
Know Your User
Understand the Business Function
Understand the Principles of Good ID
Develop System Menus
Select the Proper Kinds of Windows
Select the Proper Interaction Devices
Choose the Proper Screen-Based Controls

14 steps (cont.)
8) Write Clear Text
9) Provide Effective Feedback
10) Provide Effective Accessibility
11) Create Meaningful Graphics
12) Choose the Proper Colors
13) Organize Windows
14) Test

History of HCI
Movements & gestures
Spoken language
Written language
Typewriter
Computers: QA, Menu selection, Form fill-in (Speech & handwriting recognition)
Introduction of GUI

What is GUI?
Pronounced “gooey”
A graphical user interface (GUI) is a type of user interface) is a type of user interface which allows people to interact with electronic devices such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 Players, Portable Media Players or Gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment with images rather than text commands. (Wikipedia)

History of HCI (cont)
1963, Ivan Sutherland, MIT. Sketchpad program. Lines, circles, and points could be drawn on a screen using a light pen.

History of HCI (cont)
1970s, Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, Altus & STAR systems. Mouse (pointing & selecting).

History of HCI (cont)
1974, Xerox. Today’s mouse.

History of HCI (cont)
1984, Apple. Macintosh
1985, Microsoft. Windows 1.0
1987, Apple. Macintosh II. The first color Macintosh.
IBM. System Application Architecture and Presentation Manager. Graphics OS replacement for DOS.
1988, NeXT. NeXTStep, 3-d Screen simulation.
UNIX-based GUIs.

The Blossoming of the World Wide Web
1960s, Licklider, MIT. Proposed a global network of computers & moved to DARPA.
1969. ARPANET. 4 major universities.
1974, Bolt, Beranek, & Newman. Telnet. Commercial version of ARPANET.
1970s. TCP/IP. Common language of all Internet computers.
1982. “Internet”

The Blossoming of the World Wide Web (cont.)
1991, Gopher, University of Minnesota. First really friendly interface.
1989, European Laboratory for Particle Physics. Hypertext protocol. HTML (Hypertext Markup language).
1991, Berners-Lee. World Wide Web.

Web vs. Internet
Global information space in which people can read & write using computers connected to the Internet.
The Web is a service that operates over the Internet, just as e-mail operates over the Internet (Wikipedia.org, 2006).

The Blossoming of the World Wide Web (cont.)
1993, NCSA at Univ. of Illinois. Mosaic. First popular graphics-based hypertext browser.
1994. Netscape Navigator
1995, Microsoft. Internet Explorer
1994. NSF stopped support. W3C formed to promote & develop standards for the Web.
2003, Apple. Safari 1.0
2004. Mozilla Firefox

A Brief History of Screen Design
1970s, IBM. 3270 cathode ray tube text-based terminal

1970s screen

A Brief History of Screen Design (cont.)
1970s screens
Cryptic & unintelligible captions
Always had to remember what to type
Ambiguous messages
Monochromatic, green text on black background

1980s screen

A Brief History of Screen Design (cont.)
1980s
Grouping & alignment
Clear captions
Command list (+ function keys)
Instructions had to be inscribed

1990s and beyond