Software Interface Design Principles

Software Interface Design Principle original address: http://www.uml.org.cn/jmshj/200802015.asp

 

For application software, a basic reality is that the user interface is user-oriented. Users need applications developed by developers to meet their needs and are easy to use. The main principles of user interface design include:

(1) consistency, the most important thing is to ensure the consistency of user interface operations. For the list box, if you double-click the items to cause some events, double-click the items in any other list box to have the same event. The positions of all window buttons should be the same, the labels and messages should be the same, and the color scheme should be the same. The consistency of user interfaces enables users to establish precise psychological models for interface operations, thus reducing training and support costs.

(2) establish and follow standards. The only way to maintain consistency in application software is to establish and follow design standards. The best way is to adopt a set of industry standards to supplement their own special needs. Existing industry standards, such as IBM and Microsoft standards, can generally meet the needs of 95% to 99%. Using industry standards, you only need to take advantage of existing results and make your applications look or feel more like other applications you have purchased or created.

(3) clarify the rules. Users need to know how to use the software developed for them. The consistency of software operations indicates that you only need to explain the rules once. This is much easier than explaining how to use each feature of the application software step by step.

(4) both new and skilled hands are supported. Library directory symbols may be enough for general users of the library system, but for skilled users and book administrators, they may not be so effective. Librarians are specially trained to use complex Query Systems to find information. Therefore, they should consider establishing a query interface to meet their unique needs.

(5) It is important to switch between interfaces. If switching from one screen to another is very difficult, the user will soon lose heart and give up. This software makes sense to the user only when the screen flow is consistent with the work flow that the user wants to complete. Because different users work in different ways, application software needs to be flexible enough to support them in different ways. In the modeling phase, the interface flowchart can be used to simulate the process between screens.

(6) The layout on the interface is very important. In the West, people are from left to right, reading from top to bottom. Based on people's habits, the screen organization should also be from left to right, from top to bottom. The layout of the screen widgets should also be done in a way familiar to the user.

(7) information and tag wording should be appropriate. The text displayed on the screen is the main information source of the user. If the text is poorly formatted, the user's understanding will be poor. Use complete wording and sentences instead of abbreviations andCodeTo make the text easy to understand. The message should be active, show that the user is under control, and prompt how to use the software correctly.

(8) do not blindly follow other software. Unless you know that an application complies with your user interface standards and guidelines, you cannot determine that it is doing right. Although it is a good idea to look at how people do it and get some ideas from it, you have to be careful before you know How to differentiate the quality of user interface design. Too many developers mistakenly mimic the user interfaces of other application software, but those interfaces are poorly designed.

(9) effective combination. Logically associated projects should be combined on the screen to display their associativity. Otherwise, any irrelevant items should be separated. You can also group A project set by interval or use a box.

(10) Understand widgets. Using appropriate widgets for proper tasks can first help improve application software consistency, which may make application software easy to construct. The only way to learn how to correctly use widgets is to read and understand the user interface standards and guidelines used.

(11) follow the comparison principles. We plan to use colors in applications to ensure screen readability. The best way is to follow the comparison principle: Use dark text on a light background and use light text on a dark background. It is easy to read the blue text on the white background, but it is hard to recognize it on the red background. The problem is that there is not enough contrast between blue and red, while there is a great contrast between blue and white.

(12) area arrangement. When the screen has multiple editing areas, You need to organize these areas with visual effects and efficiency. For example, the left boundary of the editing area is placed on a straight line and arranged up and down. The corresponding label should be right aligned and placed next to the editing area. This is a neat and effective way to organize areas on the screen.

(13) The screen cannot be crowded. Crowded screens are hard to understand and therefore difficult to use. The experimental results (Mayhew, 1992) show that the overall screen coverage should not exceed 40%, and the screen coverage in the group should not exceed 62%.

(14) data alignment should be appropriate. For data in a column, the general practice is to align the right of an integer floating point and the left of the string.

Steps for User Interface Design

The goal of the interface designer is to design and implement high-quality user interfaces, but what is "high-quality user interfaces" is not that easy to define. In fact, the definition of "high-quality User Interface" can be understood as: It is intuitive and easy to use for any user, in addition, the user can achieve maximum efficiency and effect during use. To design a high-quality user interface, you must develop it in strict accordance with the defined design steps. Without these design steps, you cannot design high-quality applications.ProgramNot to mention high-quality user interfaces.

The user interface design can be divided into the following steps:

(1) The External Model Design for creating system functions mainly takes into account the data structure, overall structure, and process description of the software, however, an effective user interface can be designed only when you have an understanding of the user's situation (including age, gender, psychological condition, educational level, personality, and racial background; design the user model based on the hypothetical design of the future system by the end user, and finally match the system image (external features of the system) after the system is implemented, only when users are satisfied with the system and can use the system effectively can users fully consider the information provided by the system hypothesis when establishing a user model. The system image must accurately reflect the syntax and semantics of the system. In short, only by understanding the user, understanding the task can we design a good man-machine interface.

(2) determine the tasks that should be completed separately by the System feature and computer. There are two ways to analyze tasks. One is to map an existing application system in the manual or semi-Manual state to a group of similar tasks executed on the human-machine interface; the other is to export a group of user tasks that are in coordination with the user model and system assumptions by studying the System Requirement Specifications.

Progressive refinement and object-oriented analysis are also applicable to task analysis. Step by step refinement technology can divide tasks into subtasks until the requirements for each task are very clear; the object-oriented analysis technology can be used to identify all objective objects related to applications and actions associated with objects.

(3) consider typical issues in interface design. To design a human-machine interface, you must consider four aspects: system response time, user help mechanism, error information processing, and command methods. Too long system response time is the most complained problem in interactive systems. In addition to the absolute length of response time, users are also very concerned about the differences in response time between different commands, too many users will be unacceptable; the user's help mechanism should adopt an integrated approach to avoid the stacked system causing users to seek help from a certain guide and have to browse a large amount of irrelevant information; errors and warnings must be described in terms that are clear and accurate to the user, and suggestions on error recovery should be provided as much as possible. In addition, when an error message is displayed, audio (ringtones) and visual (special colors) are used for better results. It is recommended that menus and keyboard commands coexist for users to choose from.

(4) use the CASE tool to construct an interface prototype and truly implement the design model. Once the software model is determined, a software prototype can be constructed. At this time, only the User Interface part is available. The prototype is submitted to the user for review, after modification based on feedback, the modification is submitted to the user for review until it is consistent with the user model and system assumptions. Generally, you can use the user interface toolbox or the ready-made modules or objects provided by the user interface development system to create basic components of various interfaces.