Evaluate the Usability of a User Interface Tool or Toolkit Assignment 1 Assignment 1 Evaluate the Usability of a User Interface Tool or Toolkit T. H Ranasinghe IT

Tool #1 Part A Tool #1  Microsoft visual studio   Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs for Microsoft Windows, as well as web sites, web applications and web services. It supports different programming languages include C#, VB.NET, C, C++, F#, Python, and Ruby.  Microsoft Visual Studio is available in the following editions Visual Studio Express Visual Studio Professional Visual Studio Community Visual Studio Premium Visual Studio Ultimate Visual Studio Test Professional

Tool #2  NetBeans   NetBeans is an integrated development environment (IDE) for developing primarily with Java, but also with other languages, in particular PHP, C/C++, and HTML5. It is also an application platform framework for Java desktop applications and others.  Can run on Windows, OS X, Linux, Solaris and other platforms supporting a compatible JVM

Tool #3  Xcode   Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) that you use to build apps for Apple products such as the iPad, iPhone, and Mac.  Xcode supports C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Java, AppleScript, Python, Ruby, Rez, and Swift source code with a variety of programming models

Part B

10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design  Visibility of system status  Match between system and the real world  User control and freedom  Consistency and standards  Error prevention  Recognition rather than recall  Flexibility and efficiency of use  Aesthetic and minimalist design  Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors  Help and documentation

Part C Match between system and the real world  Built-in several languages include C, C++, C#(via Visual C#) VB.NET (via Visual Basic.NET), and F# (as of Visual Studio 2010). words are using in these languages are known by programmers ex: Inheritance and Constructors, Polymorphism key words – string, namespace, static

Error prevention  It has the code completion component as well as code refactoring  Autocomplete suggestions appear

Flexibility and efficiency of use  Visual Studio includes a host of visual designers to aid in the development of applications. Such as Windows Forms Designer (Layout can be controlled by housing the controls inside other containers or locking them to the side of the form)

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors  Has user friendly and easily understandable error messages.

Help and documentation  There is fast and professional way to help users in Visual Studio applications  Online and local help  Documentation provides resources for learning how to use VS to create desktop and web application

Benefits  Supports different programming languages  Code completion component and code refactoring component  Provides online help system  Developer/ user friendly  Web Project facility  Support huge DB functions

Drawbacks  Sometimes crashes with HTML pages  Cannot, easily, be transferred to other operating systems  No clear backup solution  Managed code can be slower than native code