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INFO Designing the visual composition and temporal behavior of GUI is an important part of software application programming. Its goal is to enhance the efficiency and ease of use for the underlying logical design of a stored program, a design discipline known as usability. Techniques of user-centered design are used to ensure that the visual language introduced in the design is well tailored to the tasks it must perform. Typically, the user interacts with information by manipulating visual widgets that allow for interactions appropriate to the kind of data they hold. The widgets of a well-designed interface are selected to support the actions necessary to achieve the goals of the user. A Model-view-controller allows for a flexible structure in which the interface is independent from and indirectly linked to application functionality, so the GUI can be easily customized. This allows the user to select or design a different skin at will, and eases the designer's work to change the interface as the user needs evolve. Nevertheless, good user interface design relates to the user, not the system architecture. The visible graphical interface features of an application are sometimes referred to as "chrome".[4] Larger widgets, such as windows, usually provide a frame or container for the main presentation content such as a web page, email message or drawing. Smaller ones usually act as a user-input tool. A GUI may be designed for the rigorous requirements of a vertical market. This is known as an "application specific graphical user interface." Examples of an application specific GUI are: Touchscreen point of sale software used by waitstaff in a busy restaurant, self-service checkouts used in a retail store, automated teller machines (ATM)... The latest cell phones and handheld game systems also employ application specific touchscreen GUIs. Newer automobiles use GUIs in their navigation systems and touch screen multimedia centers. Following PARC the first GUI-centric computer operating model was the Xerox 8010 Star Information System in 1981. Followed by the Apple Lisa in 1982. The GUIs familiar to most people today are Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and the X Window System interfaces. Apple, IBM and Microsoft used many of Xerox's ideas to develop products, and IBMs Common User Access specifications formed the basis of the user interface found in Microsoft Windows, IBM OS/2 Presentation Manager, and the Unix Motif toolkit and window manager. These ideas evolved to create the interface found in current versions of
Microsoft Windows, as well as in Mac OS X and various desktop environments
for Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux. Thus most current GUIs have
largely common idioms. Wikipedia - A free encyclopedia with millions of articles contributed collaboratively using Wiki software, in dozens of languages. www.wikipedia.org Other Links defau link1 |