SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development

Marti HearstThurs, Feb 27, 2003

Graphical Design in UI Design

Sources: • GUI Bloopers, Chapter 3

– Jeff Johnson• Principle of Effective Visual Communication for GUI design

– Marcus in Baecker, Grudin, Buxton and Greenberg• Designing Visual Interfaces

– Mullet & Sano, Prentice Hall• The Non-Designers Design Book

– Robin Williams, Peachpit Press

Graphical Design in UI Design

Graphical Design must account for:– A comprehensible mental image– Appropriate organization of data, functions, tasks and roles– High-quality appearances

• The “look”

– Effective interaction sequencing• The “feel”

From http://www.warrenkramer.com/design/1/index.shtml

A Note on Tools

Most tools make it difficult to do layout correctlyPowerpoint especially!!

Layout Grids: A Design Staple

Organization– contrast to bring out dominant elements– grouping of elements by proximity– alignment

ConsistencyNavigational CuesThe eye travels along the paths cut out for it in the work. – Paul Klee

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/28/index4a_page2.html?tw=design

Layout Grids

From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

Two Column Layout Grids

From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

Three Column Layout Grids

From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

Symmetry vs. Asymmetry

Beware of too much symmetry

From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

Four Column Layout Grids

Layout Grids

Window to widget

spacing

Widget to widget

spacing

No Ok

Message text in Arial 14, left adjusted

Standard icon set

Fixed components

Format of variable contents

No Ok

Message text in Arial 14, left adjusted

Standard icon set

No Ok

Do you really want to delete the file “myfile.doc” from the folder “junk”?

?

Apply

Cancel

The file was destroyed

Bad:

Good:Slide fromSaul Greenberg

Visual Consistency

Internal consistency– Same conventions and rules for all elements of the GUI (unless strong reason to do

otherwise)– Enforced by a set of application-specific grids

External consistency– Follow platform and interface style conventions– Use platform and widget-specific grids– Deviate from conventions only when it provides a clear benefit to user

Two-level Hierarchy•indentation•contrast

Grouping by white space

Alignment connects visual elements in a sequence

Logic of organizationalflow

Slide fromSaul Greenberg

User grouping to show relationships between screen elements

Bad Good Good

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From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

Grid Layout Recommendations

Number of lines per page – # of lines you can fit on each page in your chosen font is

divisible by the number of grid sections you intend to have.– Method: Flow some text ('printer's Latin' for example) on to a

page and get a print-out in various column widths and different font sizes

Facing pages – when setting up the pages, always consider what

two facing pages will look like together.

From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

Grid Layout Recommendations

Margins: a function of how much you need to fit on to each page

• foredge (also known as outside margin): should be an average of head (top margin) and foot (bottom margin)

• foot (also known as bottom margin): should always be bigger than the head (top margin), at least 50% bigger

– (this is due an optical illusion called the optical centre -- we tend to see the centre of a page as being slightly higher than the actual centre. Thus, if elements are situated exactly equally on either side of the optical centre, we tend to see them as too low down. For that reason, when setting up a page, we normally set up the bottom margin around 50% bigger than the top margin)

• back (also known as inside or gutter margin): the two back margins taken together should be roughly as wide as the foredge

Navigational cues

Provide initial focusDirect attention to important, secondary, or peripheral items as appropriateAssist in navigation through materialOrder should follow a user’s conceptual model of sequences

bad good

IBM's Aptiva Communication Center

No regard fortask order; noorganization

Haphazard layoutfrom mullet & sano

Repairing a Haphazard layoutfrom mullet &sano

Bad alignment Poor choice of colors to distinguish labels from editable fields

Economy of visual elements

– Minimize number of controls

– Include only those that are necessary• eliminate, or relegate others to secondary windows• (but don’t want too many extra windows!)

– Minimize clutter • so information is not hidden

Overuse of 3-d effects makes the window unnecessarily cluttered

Slide adapted from Saul Greenberg

More Guidelines

From Chapter 3 of GUI Bloopers– Missing group boxes– Inconsistent group box style– Inconsistent separator style– Shoddy labeling and spacing

• Radiobutton spacing• Inconsistent property label alignment• Very long labels• Poor label placement• Unlabeld container components

– Inconsistent fonts– Tiny fonts

Web Page Layout

– Controversies about:• Should users scroll?• How much whitespace?

– Spool’s claims• Users scroll if the top part of the page contains useful information.

– (If it contains branding, ads, etc, they assume more of the same below.)• Whitespace negatively correlated with usefulness

– Viewing a page through a browser is like putting a small hole in a piece of paper and holding over the middle of a magazine page

– Layout design is different for the web than print

– Our studies suggest:• Text and link clustering is favored• Others claim this aids scannability

Related Issues

Text – legibility– typefaces and typesetting

Color and TextureIconography

– signs, icons, symbols; concrete to abstract

Visual identity– unique appearance

Animation– dynamics of display