What is GUI design?
Abbreviation GUI stem from English words “Graphic User Interface” and marks the user environment. GUI consists of buttons, icons, windows, menus… The user, indirectly, by using GUI sets a command to the computer and through GUI he/she receives a certain response (result) from the computer.
The term GUI design is usually associated with a narrow and untrue picture which reduces it to icon “drawing” and window “colouring”. This job includes a lot more than just pure knowledge of graphic programmes and “aesthetic sense”.
First of all, the designer has to understand the mental model of the end user, his/her previous experience, habits and expectations. The aim is to create a design which will be pleasant to use not to designer nor to the ordering party, but exclusively to the end user, and that puts him/her into the position which requires non-conformism, objectivity and analytics. When designing, one also has to have in mind the user’s motor skills and psychophysical limitations. E. g. older users are not accustomed to simultaneously performing multiple tasks, they are less skilled with the mouse, their eye sight is poorer.
The designer is expected to know the appearance of all standard components of UI as well as to know their procedures and opportunities, to know how to programme and the ways of implementing graphics into programmes, to know the used APIs and their capabilities, to know I/O devices, their way of working, advantages and flaws.
Only as a finishing touch there comes the thing called window “colouring”. The final programme design itself is a considerably more complex task than people tend to see it. Like in other professional and mature design works, UI design is not done uncontrolled. Designer uses his/her knowledge on perceptive processes, artistic elements and principles of composing, he/she plans and constructs the UI in order to make the understanding and using of the programme as easy as possible, using visual communication with the end user.
Why invest into GUI design?
Good GUI design has, as a consequence, dramatic results in time spent on doing the work and reducing the number of errors. Surveys of different researchers indicate that, as a result of programme design in improvement, the average saving of time and error reduction is around 25%, although in the extreme cases it goes even up to 130%.
In 2006, Nielsen wrote in his report to IBM that optimization of programmes used by them lead to a saving of 72 minutes a month per employee. In this way the company saved $194 million on annual basis.
Good design leads to saving when staff training is concerned as well. There is a lower need for instructors, it is necessary to organize significantly training sessions, and the employees get used to the new programme dramatically faster.
In 2001 IBM set a postulate of cost-efficiency of investing into programme development. For every $10 of good-quality investment into programmes enhancement, $100 turn up as a profit.
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Author Name:Igor Kekeljevic
Contact Email Address:admirorns@yahoo.com
Author Web Site: www.admiror-design-studio.com
