One-by-one – WIMPish Elements widgets - the bits that make the GUI what do they do, what are...
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Transcript of One-by-one – WIMPish Elements widgets - the bits that make the GUI what do they do, what are...
one-by-one – WIMPish Elements
widgets - the bits that make the GUI
what do they do, what are they good for
little things matter
widgets?
• individual items on a GUI screen ...– checkboxes, menus, toolbars, buttons etc.
• three aspects:– appearance - what they look like– interaction - how they behave– semantics - what they mean
appearance includes words
• verbs - action words– quit, exit, embolden, italicise
• adjectives - description/state words– bold, italic
• nouns - usually as a form of description– Times New Roman, US Letter
• beware of mixes …– embolden + italic !!?!
behaviour … ctd.
• some bits the toolkit does for you– but is it right?
• some you control– e.g. drawing, interactions between widgets
• beware timing issues– e.g. large selections under Windows apps.
YOU say what it means
• semantics usually up to you– although widgets may link direct to database– even then, you say what links
• think separately:– meaning first - what you want it to do– then appearance - how you do it
• choose the widget for the job
what do you want?
• actions– usually menu, buttons, or toolbar
• setting state/options– usually checkbox, radio button, combi-box
• but …– menus can be used to set state etc. ...
how many?
• one of several options– radio buttons, selection menu
• zero, one or more options– checkbox, multi-choice menu
• free choice– offer recent/typical shortcuts– one line text boxes often terrible!
and more ...
• number– fixed e.g. bold, italic, underline– variable e.g. font list– scolling through telephone list …
• liveness– grey out inactive options
• dynamic interactions– some choices dependent on others
a design story ...
• documentation browser
• numbered scroll bar
• page-up/down buttons
• … on screen only …
• no-one used the buttons
• … why?
a design story … ctd.
• text jump scrolled
• eye focus on buttons
disorientating
• … can we put it right?
a design story ... ctd.
• section head at top
• scroll buttons at top
• opposite section head
difference?
… amazing!
scroll bars are simple ...
Scrollbars may look different, but are basically the same. They just sit on the right hand side of the screen. You press the up button and the screen goes down, you press the down button and the screen goes up... hey wait a minute
a little history
• Xerox Palo Alto Labs– hotbed of computing research– programming environments (Lisp, Smalltalk)– Xerox Star (late 1970s) - 1st office GUI
• Apple– Lisa - technology from Star, but too expensive– Macintosh - birth of popular windows interfaces
• Microsoft– may get there someday ...
Star and scrollbars
• pre-Star (Smalltalk etc.) on the left
• Star - scrollbar on the right– to avoid visual clutter and ease text reading
• Star scrolling– page at a time - not continuous– very different model
• what is right - left or right… just hands across the screen?
up or down
• Option 1 - normal today– arrow up = screen down & scroll handle up
• Option 2– arrow up = screen up & scroll handle down
which is right? no easy answer
do an experiment!
Star team did it
• Option 2 - won– so we have the wrong kind of scroll bar!
• why?
• two versions of Star interface– before and after experiments
• Xerox passed designs to Apple …
… but gave the wrong one
who it was
Alan Dix
http://www.hcibook.com/
http://www.hiraeth.com/alan/teaching/bigui
http://www.hiraeth.com/alan/topics/widget
http://www.aqtive.com/