CS349 - Implementing User Interfaces - Spring 2010

Lecture 1 - Orientation

Administration

• Where, when, who

User interfaces

Two way flow of information

• User -> Computer
  • control
  • all hands
• Computer -> User
  • monitoring progress, getting results
  • all eyes

This also describes all kinds of thingss that surround us in our everyday lives, such as

• door knobs
• light switches
• steering wheels, and other parts of the driving interface
• Unix

Every instance of an interface has a set of common features. (An `instance of an interface' is a single use of the interface.)

• a user, taken from a set of potential users
• a task that the user wants to perform, taken from a set of possible tasks
• a strategy, which is a time-ordered collection of actions chosen by the user, taken from a set of affordances provided by the interface
• a sequence of feedback, provided to allow the user to monitor progress of the task, and to help the user decide what action should next be performed

Thus, the interface itself is developed in the context of

• a collection of potential users, and
• a collection of tasks which it can perform.

The developed interface provides

• a collection of affordances, which is a collection of responses to user actions, and
• one or more streams ofoutput, which provide the state of the system to the user.

Most interfaces are also rooted in an application domain, which defines

• inputs that the interface can access, and
• side effects of using the interface.

The design of an interface takes all these things into account; so does its implementation. `Developing' includes both design and implementation.

Two questions a user interface course might ask and answer..

1. What should an interface be like? Other common interfaces, where similar users do similar tasks.
2. How do you make it that way? The same way other programmers do.

In 2010 this means

1. We study interfaces that
   • provide output as a set of layers on a 2D screen
   • get input from a keyboard and/or pointing device
   • encode commands in keystrokes, clicks, gestures
   • draw simple pictures and write words for output, with words dominating
2. We look at a set of implementation methods that meet different sorts of functional problems
   • low-level methods for games and tight interaction
   • component-based methods for `productivity' applications
   • scripting methods for prototypes and one-offs.

Return to:

• CS349 - Spring 2010 - Lecture notes
• CS349 - Spring 2010
• CS349 page
• Bill Cowan's home page.