Designing the User Interface

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Earlier in the project life cycle, placeholder classes were created for the boundary classes for the system. Now, these classes must be finalized ”number of windows , window layout, and handling events from users. Sequence diagrams are good sources for user interface requirements. Something in the user interface must provide the capability to receive all "messages" coming from an actor. Something in the user interface must provide the capability to send all "messages" going to an actor.

Select Courses to Teach User Interface Design

The scenarios dealing with the Select Courses to Teach use case were examined and the following requirements were found:

The professor must enter a password to enter the system. A window prompting the professor for a password was created.
If the password is valid, the ProfessorCourseOptions window is displayed. The ProfessorCourseOptions window contains a field for the semester and for the following buttons : ADD COURSE, DELETE COURSE, REVIEW SCHEDULE, PRINT SCHEDULE.
Windows for the addition, deletion, and review options were created.

This book concentrates on the design of the ADD COURSE option for the scenario. It is important to note that the design of the system cannot be based on only one scenario ”the design matures as more scenarios are developed. I have chosen to use one scenario to illustrate the Rational Unified process and the UML notation that may be used to communicate the design decisions.

The ADD COURSE option deals with adding a professor to a course offering as the teacher. This scenario needs a window to allow the professor to input the needed information ”I called it the Addition window. The Addition window contains the following selections:

Course name field
Course number field
Course offerings scroll box
OK button
Cancel button
Quit button

Once the professor enters the course name and number the system will retrieve and display the course offerings. Additionally, the professor will be able to select an offering. When the OK button is pushed , a message is sent to the course object.

The actual implementation of the GUI depends upon the class library chosen and is beyond the scope of this book. This section was included so you would understand the implications of object-oriented GUI design. Most GUI design is accomplished via a GUI builder. In this case, once the GUI classes are created, the reverse engineering capabilities of Rational Rose may be used to add the classes to the model.

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