Software Engineering for User Interfaces.
Abstract
The discipline of Software Engineering can be extended in a natural way to deal with the issues raised by a systematic approach to the design of human-machine interfaces. Two main points are made: that the user should be treated as part of the system being designed, and that projects should be organized to take account of the current (small) state of a priori knowledge about how to design interfaces. Because the principles of good user-interface design are not yet well specified (and not yet known), interfaces should be developed through an iterative process. This means that it is essential to develop tools for evaluation and debugging of the interface, much the same ways as tools have been developed for the evaluation and debugging or program code. We need to develop methods of detecting bugs in the interface and of diagnosing their cause. The tools for testing interfaces should include measures of interface performance, acceptance tests, and benchmarks. Developing useful measures is a non-trivial task, but a start can and should be made. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1984
- Accession Number
- ADA138937
Entities
People
- D. A. Norman
- S. W. Draper
Organizations
- University of California, San Diego