Designing a User-Centered Interface

Designing a User -Centered Interface

The expression user-interface design can mean one of at least the two following things:

  • The visual shaping of the user interface so that it handles various usability requirements

  • The design of the user interface in terms of design classes (and components such as ActiveX classes and JavaBeans) that is related to other design classes dealing with business logic, persistence, and so on, and that leads to the final implementation of the user interface

We operate under the first definition, focusing on achieving a user-centered design. In the requirement discipline, user profiles and user environments are specified in the vision document, with the main input to the design of the user interface being the use-case model, the supplementary specifications, and the storyboards, which are developed in conjunction with the users or their representatives and other key stakeholders. The results are detailed definitions of user characteristics and realizations of the user-interface-specific parts of the use cases.

Based on these results, a prototype of the user interface is built, in most cases by using a prototyping tool. We call this user-interface prototyping. This provides a valuable feedback mechanism for determining the final requirements of the system.



The Rational Unified Process. An Introduction
Blogosphere: Best of Blogs
ISBN: B0072U14D8
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 193

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