User Interface Building Tools
Introduction
Log cabins were often built by settlers for personal housing on the American
frontier, just as early user interfaces were built by programmers for their
own use. As housing needs changed, windows and rooms were added in a process
of iterative refinement, and dirt floors gave way to finished wood. Log
cabins are still being built according to personal taste by rugged individualists,
but modern private homes, apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, and offices
require specialist training, careful planning, and special equipment.
The emergence of user-interface architects, design and specification methods,
standard components, and automated tools for construction are indicators
of the maturation of our field. There will always be room for the innovator
and the eccentric, but the demands of modern life are that we build reliable,
standard, safe, inexpensive, effective, and widely acceptable user interfaces
on a predictable schedule (Carey, 1988).
Like the architect, we must have simple and quick methods of sketching an
interface to give the clients some way of identifying their needs. Then,
we need more precise methods for working out the details with the clients
(detailed floorplans become transition diagrams, screen layouts, and menu
trees), coordinating with our more specialized colleagues (plumbers and
electricians become graphic designers and technical writers), and for telling
the builders what to do.
Like building architects, successful user-interface architects know it makes
good sense to complete the design before we start building, even though
we know that in the process of construction some changes will have to be
made. With large projects, multiple designers (structural engineers for
the steel framework, interior designers for space planning, and decorators
for the esthetics) will be necessary. The size and importance of each project
will determine the level of design effort and the number of participants.
Just as there are specialists for airports, hospitals, and schools, there
will be user interfaces specialists for air-traffic control, medical, and
educational applications.
This chapter begins with user-interface specification methods, covers design
notations and prototyping tools, then moves to the construction tools such
as programmer toolkits and graphic interface design environments. All these
user interface building tools have matured rapidly in the past few years
and radically changed the nature of software development. Productivity gains
of 50 to 500% above previous methods have been documented for many standard
graphical user interfaces. But, even as the power tools for established
styles improve and gain acceptance, programmers will always have to hand-craft
novel interface styles.
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Last Updated:
11 December 2002
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