User Interface

Human–Computer Interaction
Layer Design: Objectives
• Understand several fundamental user interface (UI) design principles.
• Understand the process of UI design.
• Understand how to design the UI structure.
• Understand how to design the UI standards.
• Understand commonly used principles and techniques for navigation design. • Understand commonly used principles and techniques for input design.
• Understand commonly used principles and techniques for output design.
• Be able to design a user interface.
• Understand the affect of nonfunctional requirements on the humancomputer interaction layer.

Principles of User Interface Design
• Layout
• Content Awareness
• Aesthetics
• User Experience
• Consistency
• Minimal User Effort

Layout
• Each area may be further subdivided
• Each area is self‐contained
• Areas should have a natural intuitive flow
– Users from western nations tend to read from left to right and top to bottom
– Users from other regions may have different flows

Content Awareness
• Intuitively answers the users’ questions:
– Where am I?
– What am I supposed to be doing here?
• Content awareness applies to sub‐areas within a form or window
– Related form fields (e.g. address information) are grouped together
– Related report information (e.g. records) are grouped together

5
Aesthetics
• Interfaces should be functional, inviting to use, and pleasing to the eye
• In most cases, less is more (minimalist design)
• White space is important
• Acceptable information density is proportional to the user’s expertise
– Novice users prefer less than 50% density
– Expert users prefer more than 50% density

User Experience
• Ease of learning
– Significant issue for inexperienced users
– Relevant to systems with a large user population
• Ease of use
– Significant issue for expert users
– Most important in specialized systems
• Sometimes ease of learning and use of use go hand in hand
1
Human–Computer