13-1 © Prentice Hall, 2004 Chapter 13: Designing the Human Interface (Adapted) Object-Oriented Systems Analysis and Design Joey F. George, Dinesh Batra, Joseph S. Valacich, Jeffrey A. Hoffer

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Chapter Objectives - Concept of User interface – Forms and reports – General guidelines for forms and reports – Dialogue design – Usability Testing; Web Usability Usability Testing; Web Usability

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Note: In OO Development, user interface is designed in cycles.

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 UI refers to all the screens through which User provides input to the system and gets output from the system. Forms and reports are types of UI supporting access to databases. - Very common since databases part of almost any system. - BUT, not only type of UI!!! (book’s bias) Concept of User Interface (UI)

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Form - Input and output object - Input form object: A business document that contains some predefined data and may include some areas where additional data are to be filled in - Typically based on a database record or query

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Report A business document that contains only predefined data A passive document meant only for reading or viewing, not data input Typically contains data from many unrelated transactions or records

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Visual Basic and other development tools provide computer-aided GUI form and report generation.

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 A typical form design specification: Based on a use case connection – Boundary Class Involves three parts: 1)Narrative overview 2)Sample design 3)Assessment

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Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Grouping, organization, layout, and highlighting are important considerations in form design

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Highlighting can include use of upper case, font size differences, bold, italics, underline, boxing, and other approaches.

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Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Business reports are static, no user interaction. Therefore, business reports are often printed in hardcopy form.

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Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Bar and line graphs give pictorial summary information that can enhance reports and graphs.

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Dialogue Design – Layout (of widgets, text, and table data) – Structuring data entry (tab order) – Controlling data input (validation and format controls) – Systems’ Feedback (prompting, status, warning, and error messages) – Dialogue sequencing Dialogue - A sequence of interactions between the system and a user. Design includes:

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 A typical interface/dialogue design specification: Similar to form design, but includes multiple forms and dialogue sequence specifications

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Data entry structure is concerned with navigation flow.

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Navigation flow should be natural and intuitive to the user, not disjointed and confusing.

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Also a guideline for UI: Never make slide like this – for number of lines use 7 +/- rule!

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 System’s Feedback Status information – keep user informed of what’s going on, helpful when user has to wait for response Prompting cues – tell user when input is needed, and how to provide the input Warning or Error – informs user that something is wrong, either with data entry or system operation

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Guidelines for Dialogue Design – Consistency – Allow sequence, shortcuts, and reversals in navigation – Frequent feedback – Logical grouping and sequencing of diagrams, with beginning, middle, and end – Comprehensive error handling – Maximize ease and control of use

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Dialogue sequencing

Chapter © Prentice Hall, 2004 Dialogue diagrams depict the sequence, conditional branching, and repetition of dialogues.