presentation about graphical user interface

• Trending Now
• Foundational Courses
• Data Science
• Practice Problem
• Machine Learning
• System Design
• DevOps Tutorial

What is Graphical User Interface (GUI)?

• What is Character User Interface(CUI)?
• What is a Natural User Interface?
• What are 3D User Interfaces?
• What is Command Line Interface (CLI)?
• What is Switch Command-Line Interface?
• What is Graphics Software?
• What is Application Software?
• What is Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)?
• What is a Graphics Tablet? Uses and Working
• User Interface (UI) Design Patterns
• Guide for Figma Interface
• What is Appium Desktop client?
• What are Presentation Graphics?
• Creating Interactive Plots with R and Highcharts
• What is the difference between GUI and CUI?
• What is the Importance of User Flows in UX ?
• What is an Operating System?
• Graphical User Interface Testing (GUI) Testing
• User Interface (UI)
• Dynamic User Interfaces in JavaScript
• User Interface (UI) Design Roadmap
• Interactive Graphical Techniques in Computer Graphics
• Qualities of Good User Interface Design
• User Interface Design - Software Engineering
• Graphical Kernel System (GKS)
• Introduction to Graphical User Interface of RedHat Linux Operating System
• Application Programming Interfaces (API) and its Types
• What is Java AWT Graphics?
• What is Linux System Administration?

The common and useful component of electronics such as computers, tablets, and smartphones is a visual interface called a Graphical User Interface (GUI) . The graphical user interface (GUI) shows useful items that indicate actions the user can perform and transmit information as per requirement. When interacting with the objects, the user can modify or simplify their size, color as well as visibility. As the text command-line interfaces in the system were complex and challenging to master, GUIs were developed. It is currently the accepted practice in software applications or system programming for required user-centered design.

A system of interactive visual components for a computer or system software is called a GUI (graphical user interface). GUI is the interface that uses graphical elements to let people interact as per requirement with electronic devices including computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. In terms of human-computer interaction systems or technology, it’s a very important component of software application programming since it substitutes actions for the text-based commands in the system. Whether it’s a text file, object, image, or video as per requirement, it displays all types of required content a user could envision in the system. Additionally, it can be featured in the gaming platform where the resolution is visible or optimal.

History of GUI

In the year of 1981, Alan Kay, Douglas Engelbart, and other researchers at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Centre) developed the GUI technology. A GUI-equipped Lisa computer was later released by Apple as per requirement on January 19, 1983. Before there was a graphical user interface, communication was done via the command-line interface, or CLI to manage the overall system. The end users did not find the CLI particularly enjoyable to use and modify, so they were unfamiliar with all of the user-beneficial commands. Thus, the interface was put into place to fill this required gap. One of the most important techniques or features, as the GUI highlights, is “ease of use.” The individual system of Xerox 8010 Information System served as the first GUI-centric machine operating model in the technology.

Components of GUI

• Pointers: The pointer appears on the user’s screen as a marking symbol. The pointer moves on to choose instructions and objects as per requirement.
• Icons: Icons allude to tiny visual representations of windows, documents, actions, and other things on the display screen to simplify. A pointer and pointing device can be used by the user to carry out the initial tasks for the overall processes.
• Pointing tool: At the initial stages, the pointing tool enables the user to select and move the required pointer items on the screen, including a trackball or mouse . It is the most beneficial tool in GUI.
• Desktop: The desktop is the screen that is contained within the icons and user beneficial.

Features of GUI

• The graphical user interface (GUI) is very easy to use and the user can modify and simplify the requirements.
• The required software, documents, or a few relevant programs are reflected in the icons on the user interface to control the overall processes properly.
• A graphical user interface (GUI) has several features as per requirement, such as tabs, a menu, pointers, and various other types of things to simplify and process smoothly.

Advantages of GUI

• A graphical user interface (GUI) is basically seen as more intuitive for users than a text-based command-line interface as per requirement, such MS-DOS or the Unix-like operating system shell process.
• It is incredibly user-friendly and readily available to all and for novices, the user interface is rather easy to understand and uncomplicated as per requirement.
• GUI represents the now-hidden lines of command with the required graphic elements.
• The end users must commit required instructions to memory for the software to function properly.

Disadvantages of GUI

• An interface which is very much difficult to use will make the required tasks more difficult for the user to complete and less effective overall processes.
• Gamers are still much affected negatively by a poor interface or surface system, therefore it remains a problem for them to control the overall system.

GUI enables the users to work with and display many required programs simultaneously to process. Despite the rapid advancements in technology and science, the Graphical User Interface continues to be a vital component of users online communications. Users can minimize the required strokes by using shortcut keys provided by the GUI. By using just two keys to do multiple activities, a user can save time and boost productivity as per the system. All it takes to obtain properly a function is a single click. GUI has taken over as the required primary interface for computers and mobile devices or systems because it is very much simple to use and comprehend.

Frequently Asked Questions on Graphical User Interface – FAQs

Give some examples of gui operating systems..

The majority of operating systems have graphical user interfaces (GUIs), while some may also include a command line. The GUI operating systems that can be installed on a computer are mentioned as examples: Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux etc.

What is the main difference between UI and GUI?

Basically, UI deals with how people interact with the product, whereas GUI is more concerned with appearance of the system. The creation of user-friendly and intuitive interfaces as per requirement is the responsibility of UI designers.

Are all of the operating systems are GUI?

No, all the operating systems are not GUI. Basically, the GUI is absent from older command-line operating systems like MS-DOS and some modern Linux versions.

What is the user interaction process with GUI?

Almost every required feature of the GUI can be interacted with using a pointing device, like the mouse with click. Devices that are more recent and portable also make use of touch screens as per requirement.

Please Login to comment...

Similar reads.

• Geeks Premier League 2023
• Computer Subject
• Geeks Premier League

Improve your Coding Skills with Practice

What kind of Experience do you want to share?

What Is a Graphical User Interface (GUI)?

A graphical user interface (GUI) is the medium through which the user interacts with a computer or any electronic device. You’re very likely reading this article through a GUI. Users can interact with a GUI using a mouse, keyboard, touch screen or even through voice commands depending on their device.

Before GUI, we interacted with computers using written commands, or what we call CLI (command-line interface) . If I want to view the content of a folder named docs in a CLI, I would open the command prompt and type something like cd docs , which will open the folder, and then ls to show me the content of this folder. On the other hand, a GUI allows me to just double-click on the folder’s icon, and I can view its content right away.

Converting to GUIs made technology more user-centric and widely accessible. GUIs have enabled technology to become part of our daily lives, regardless of whether or not you know how to program. 

Examples of Graphical User Interfaces

We interact with GUIs every day. From the graphics incorporated into ATMs, to video game animations, to smartphones’ operating systems, GUIs are everywhere. Popular GUIs we use daily are Microsoft Windows, macOS, Android and Apple’s iOS. GUIs are also how we interact with the internet through web browsers like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Firefox.

More From the Built In Tech Dictionary What Is Front-End Development?

How Does a Graphical User Interface Work? 

How we interact with GUIs has developed rapidly as technology advances. We went from a mouse and keyboard to touch screens and voice commands in a matter of years. 

Every GUI has a collection of images, shapes and colors programmed to perform specific tasks. These images are often chosen to be something simple for users to understand. For example, the icon for your email inbox is in the shape of an envelope because an email is an electronic letter. 

When developers build a GUI, they write a series of commands to be performed once the user clicks on that specific icon. Without a GUI, the user would have to write commands directly in the command prompt themselves, thereby limiting how accessible any given piece of technology can become. So, the GUI is just a way for us to communicate with the computer more efficiently.

A UX designer will optimize the GUI’s design depending on its required functions. UX designers decide on colors, sizes, shapes, content and user flows for a GUI, then a UI engineer or programmer codes the GUI’s functionality. 

Programmers use various programming languages to build GUIs including Python , HTML5/ JavaScript and C/ C++ . The choice of programming language depends on the target platform. For example, when building a website GUI, which concerns the site’s appearance and navigation, programmers will use JavaScript and HTML . Alternatively, when a programmer builds an application for computers (like a game), they’re more likely to use C/C++, Python or some other programming language that supports building applications for the target platform.

Related Reading From Built In Experts Create the Classic Snake Game With Processing Library and Java

Components of a GUI 

A GUI is the interface with which a user engages when interacting with electronic devices. We can categorize a GUI’s components into three different categories.

• Input Controls : We use input controls to get information from the user on what tasks they want to perform. Input controls include buttons, text fields, checkboxes, dropdown lists and list boxes.
• Navigational Components : Navigational components include items that control the movement from one GUI to another. For example if you’re on LinkedIn, you can click on “My Feed” to see the posts your network shared or “My Profile” to view your profile. These pieces of clickable text are examples of navigational components because they allow you to navigate through the different web pages of the website. Navigational components can also include items like sliders and search fields.
• Informational Components : Informational components are those that deliver a piece of information for the user about the status of a task or other system information. For example, a progress bar, notification icon or message box are all considered informational components.

Advantages of Graphical User Interfaces

GUIs have transformed how we view and interact with technology and they have many advantages.

• GUIs are simple to use and understand.
• GUIs are convenient .
• GUIs don’t require prior computer knowledge to operate.
• GUIs allow for multitasking operations on the system.
• GUIs have instant results . In other words, you move to the next page or task right away when you click a button rather than writing lines of commands to achieve the same outcome.

What Makes a Good GUI?

Since almost everyone interacts with GUIs as a part of their daily lives, an important question to ask is: What makes a good, effective GUI? Generally, there are a few design choices that make a good GUI. 

• Simplicity. The simpler the design, the easier it will be for the users to handle and adapt the GUI for daily use.
• Consistent use of elements. When we design a website, for example, it’s important to keep the colors and overall theme consistent throughout the website, which makes the platform easier to navigate.
• Incorporating color theory. The choice of colors can tremendously change how the user perceives an icon or an element on the screen, so making the correct choice is critical. For example, we often use the color green to mean “proceed,” while red is used to convey “stop.” So, if I build a GUI and make the OK button red and the cancel green, it may confuse users.
• Clear transitions between the different parts of the GUI. For example, if we consider Google search, the transition from the page where you type your query to the results page is subtle and fast. The user can intuit how to move between pages. The buttons are strategically placed and movement between the pages is smooth.

The design choices that can make the difference between a good GUI and a bad one are the job of the UX designer . Ultimately, what makes a good GUI can differ significantly based on the purpose of the application and the target audience.

A Brief History of the GUI

Xerox’s Palo Alto research labs first introduced GUIs in the 1970s. Following that, companies such as Apple (1983) and Microsoft (1985) released their own operating system GUIs for personal computing, not just computer science research. Today we have highly advanced GUIs on laptops, smartphones — even in our cars and on our appliances. These GUIs make interacting with technology easier and more accessible for all of us, not just programmers, technology experts and scientists.

Women Who Code

Built In’s expert contributor network publishes thoughtful, solutions-oriented stories written by innovative tech professionals. It is the tech industry’s definitive destination for sharing compelling, first-person accounts of problem-solving on the road to innovation.

Great Companies Need Great People. That's Where We Come In.

• Reviews / Why join our community?
• For companies
• Frequently asked questions

Graphical User Interfaces (GUI)

Literature on graphical user interfaces (gui).

Here’s the entire UX literature on Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about Graphical User Interfaces (GUI)

Take a deep dive into Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) with our course Mobile UI Design .

In the “Build Your Portfolio” project, you’ll find a series of practical exercises that will give you first-hand experience of the methods we cover. You will build on your project in each lesson so once you have completed the course you will have a thorough case study for your portfolio.

Mobile User Experience Design: UI Design is built on evidence-based research and practice. Your expert facilitator is Frank Spillers, CEO of ExperienceDynamics.com, author, speaker and internationally respected Senior Usability practitioner.

All open-source articles on Graphical User Interfaces (GUI)

No-ui: how to build transparent interaction.

• 11 mths ago

Open Access—Link to us!

We believe in Open Access and the  democratization of knowledge . Unfortunately, world-class educational materials such as this page are normally hidden behind paywalls or in expensive textbooks.

If you want this to change , cite this page , link to us, or join us to help us democratize design knowledge !

Privacy Settings

Our digital services use necessary tracking technologies, including third-party cookies, for security, functionality, and to uphold user rights. Optional cookies offer enhanced features, and analytics.

Experience the full potential of our site that remembers your preferences and supports secure sign-in.

Governs the storage of data necessary for maintaining website security, user authentication, and fraud prevention mechanisms.

Enhanced Functionality

Saves your settings and preferences, like your location, for a more personalized experience.

Referral Program

We use cookies to enable our referral program, giving you and your friends discounts.

Error Reporting

We share user ID with Bugsnag and NewRelic to help us track errors and fix issues.

Optimize your experience by allowing us to monitor site usage. You’ll enjoy a smoother, more personalized journey without compromising your privacy.

Analytics Storage

Collects anonymous data on how you navigate and interact, helping us make informed improvements.

Differentiates real visitors from automated bots, ensuring accurate usage data and improving your website experience.

Lets us tailor your digital ads to match your interests, making them more relevant and useful to you.

Advertising Storage

Stores information for better-targeted advertising, enhancing your online ad experience.

Personalization Storage

Permits storing data to personalize content and ads across Google services based on user behavior, enhancing overall user experience.

Advertising Personalization

Allows for content and ad personalization across Google services based on user behavior. This consent enhances user experiences.

Enables personalizing ads based on user data and interactions, allowing for more relevant advertising experiences across Google services.

Receive more relevant advertisements by sharing your interests and behavior with our trusted advertising partners.

Enables better ad targeting and measurement on Meta platforms, making ads you see more relevant.

Allows for improved ad effectiveness and measurement through Meta’s Conversions API, ensuring privacy-compliant data sharing.

LinkedIn Insights

Tracks conversions, retargeting, and web analytics for LinkedIn ad campaigns, enhancing ad relevance and performance.

LinkedIn CAPI

Enhances LinkedIn advertising through server-side event tracking, offering more accurate measurement and personalization.

Google Ads Tag

Tracks ad performance and user engagement, helping deliver ads that are most useful to you.

Share Knowledge, Get Respect!

or copy link

Cite according to academic standards

Simply copy and paste the text below into your bibliographic reference list, onto your blog, or anywhere else. You can also just hyperlink to this page.

New to UX Design? We’re Giving You a Free ebook!

Download our free ebook The Basics of User Experience Design to learn about core concepts of UX design.

In 9 chapters, we’ll cover: conducting user interviews, design thinking, interaction design, mobile UX design, usability, UX research, and many more!

The May 2024 issue of IEEE Spectrum is here!

For IEEE Members

Ieee spectrum, follow ieee spectrum, support ieee spectrum, enjoy more free content and benefits by creating an account, saving articles to read later requires an ieee spectrum account, the institute content is only available for members, downloading full pdf issues is exclusive for ieee members, downloading this e-book is exclusive for ieee members, access to spectrum 's digital edition is exclusive for ieee members, following topics is a feature exclusive for ieee members, adding your response to an article requires an ieee spectrum account, create an account to access more content and features on ieee spectrum , including the ability to save articles to read later, download spectrum collections, and participate in conversations with readers and editors. for more exclusive content and features, consider joining ieee ., join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to all of spectrum’s articles, archives, pdf downloads, and other benefits. learn more →, join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to this e-book plus all of ieee spectrum’s articles, archives, pdf downloads, and other benefits. learn more →, access thousands of articles — completely free, create an account and get exclusive content and features: save articles, download collections, and talk to tech insiders — all free for full access and benefits, join ieee as a paying member., how the graphical user interface was invented, three decades of ui research came together in the mice, windows, and icons used today.

Mice, windows, icons, and menus: these are the ingredients of computer interfaces designed to be easy to grasp, simplicity itself to use, and straightforward to describe. The mouse is a pointer. Windows divide up the screen. Icons symbolize application programs and data. Menus list choices of action.

But the development of today’s graphical user interface was anything but simple. It took some 30 years of effort by engineers and computer scientists in universities, government laboratories, and corporate research groups, piggybacking on each other’s work, trying new ideas, repeating each other’s mistakes.

This article was first published as “Of Mice and menus: designing the user-friendly interface.” It appeared in the September 1989 issue of IEEE Spectrum . A PDF version is available on IEEE Xplore. The photographs and diagrams appeared in the original print version.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, many of the early concepts for windows, menus, icons, and mice were arduously researched at Xerox Corp.’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) , Palo Alto, Calif. In 1973, PARC developed the prototype Alto , the first of two computers that would prove seminal in this area. More than 1200 Altos were built and tested. From the Alto’s concepts, starting in 1975, Xerox’s System Development Department then developed the Star and introduced it in 1981—the first such user-friendly machine sold to the public.

In 1984, the low-cost Macintosh from Apple Computer Inc ., Cupertino, Calif., brought the friendly interface to thousands of personal computer users. During the next five years, the price of RAM chips fell enough to accommodate the huge memory demands of bit-mapped graphics, and the Mac was followed by dozens of similar interfaces for PCs and workstations of all kinds. By now, application programmers are becoming familiar with the idea of manipulating graphic objects.

The Mac’s success during the 1980s spurred Apple Computer to pursue legal action over ownership of many features of the graphical user interface. Suits now being litigated could assign those innovations not to the designers and their companies, but to those who first filed for legal protection on them.

The GUI started with Sketchpad

The grandfather of the graphical user interface was Sketchpad [see photograph]. Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Ivan E. Sutherland built it in 1962 as a Ph.D. thesis at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Mass. Sketchpad users could not only draw points, line segments, and circular arcs on a cathode ray tube (CRT) with a light pen—they could also assign constraints to, and relationships among, whatever they drew.

Arcs could have a specified diameter, lines could be horizontal or vertical, and figures could be built up from combinations of elements and shapes. Figures could be moved, copied, shrunk, expanded, and rotated, with their constraints (shown as onscreen icons) dynamically preserved. At a time when a CRT monitor was a novelty in itself, the idea that users could interactively create objects by drawing on a computer was revolutionary.

Sketchpad, created in 1962 by Ivan Sutherland at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, is considered the first computer with a windowing interface.

The Computer Museum

Moreover, to zoom in on objects, Sutherland wrote the first window-drawing program, which required him to come up with the first clipping algorithm. Clipping is a software routine that calculates which part of a graphic object is to be displayed and displays only that part on the screen. The program must calculate where a line is to be drawn, compare that position to the coordinates of the window in use, and prevent the display of any line segment whose coordinates fall outside the window.

Though films of Sketchpad in operation were widely shown in the computer research community, Sutherland says today that there was little immediate fallout from the project. Running on MIT’s TX-2 mainframe, it demanded too much computing power to be practical for individual use. Many other engineers, however, see Sketchpad’s design and algorithms as a primary influence on an entire generation of research into user interfaces.

The origin of the computer mouse

The light pens used to select areas of the screen by interactive computer systems of the 1950s and 1960s—including Sketchpad—had drawbacks. To do the pointing, the user’s arm had to be lifted up from the table, and after a while that got tiring. Picking up the pen required fumbling around on the table or, if it had a holder, taking the time after making a selection to put it back.

Sensing an object with a light pen was straightforward: the computer displayed spots of light on the screen and interrogated the pen as to whether it sensed a spot, so the program always knew just what was being displayed. Locating the position of the pen on the screen required more sophisticated techniques—like displaying a cross pattern of nine points on the screen, then moving the cross until it centered on the light pen.

In 1964, Douglas Engelbart , a research project leader at SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif., tested all the commercially available pointing devices, from the still-popular light pen to a joystick and a Graphicon (a curve-tracing device that used a pen mounted on the arm of a potentiometer). But he felt the selection failed to cover the full spectrum of possible pointing devices, and somehow he should fill in the blanks.

Then he remembered a 1940s college class he had taken that covered the use of a planimeter to calculate area. (A planimeter has two arms, with a wheel on each. The wheels can roll only along their axes; when one of them rolls, the other must slide.)

If a potentiometer were attached to each wheel to monitor its rotation, he thought, a planimeter could be used as a pointing device. Engelbart explained his roughly sketched idea to engineer William English, who with the help of the SRI machine shop built what they quickly dubbed “the mouse.”

This first mouse was big because it used single-turn potentiometers: one rotation of the wheels had to be scaled to move a cursor from one side of the screen to the other. But it was simple to interface with the computer: the processor just read frequent samples of the potentiometer positioning signals through analog-to-digital converters.

The cursor moved by the mouse was easy to locate, since readings from the potentiometer determined the position of the cursor on the screen-unlike the light pen. But programmers for later windowing systems found that the software necessary to determine which object the mouse had selected was more complex than that for the light pen: they had to compare the mouse’s position with that of all the objects displayed onscreen.

The computer mouse gets redesigned—and redesigned again

Engelbart’s group at SRI ran controlled experiments with mice and other pointing devices, and the mouse won hands down. People adapted to it quickly, it was easy to grab, and it stayed where they put it. Still, Engelbart wanted to tinker with it. After experimenting, his group had concluded that the proper ratio of cursor movement to mouse movement was about 2:1, but he wanted to try varying that ratio—decreasing it at slow speeds and raising it at fast speeds—to improve user control of fine movements and speed up larger movements. Some modern mouse-control software incorporates this idea, including that of the Macintosh.

The mouse, still experimental at this stage, did not change until 1971. Several members of Engelbart’s group had moved to the newly established PARC, where many other researchers had seen the SRI mouse and the test report. They decided there was no need to repeat the tests; any experimental systems they designed would use mice.

Said English, “This was my second chance to build a mouse; it was obvious that it should be a lot smaller, and that it should be digital.” Chuck Thacker, then a member of the research staff, advised PARC to hire inventor Jack Hawley to build it.

Hawley decided the mouse should use shaft encoders, which measure position by a series of pulses, instead of potentiometers (both were covered in Engelbart’s 1970 patent), to eliminate the expensive analog-to-digital converters. The basic principle, of one wheel rolling while the other slid, was licensed from SRI.

The ball mouse was the “easiest patent I ever got. It took me five minutes to think of, half an hour to describe to the attorney, and I was done.” —Ron Rider

In 1972, the mouse changed again. Ron Rider, now vice president of systems architecture at PARC but then a new arrival, said he was using the wheel mouse while an engineer made excuses for its asymmetric operation (one wheel dragging while one turned). “I suggested that they turn a trackball upside down, make it small, and use it as a mouse instead,” Rider told IEEE Spectrum . This device came to be known as the ball mouse. “Easiest patent I ever got,” Rider said. “It took me five minutes to think of, half an hour to describe to the attorney, and I was done.”

Defining terms

The pixel pattern that makes up the graphic display on a computer screen.

The motion of pressing a mouse button to Initiate an action by software; some actions require double-clicking.

Graphical user interface (GUI)

The combination of windowing displays, menus, icons, and a mouse that is increasingly used on personal computers and workstations.

An onscreen drawing that represents programs or data.

A list of command options currently available to the computer user; some stay onscreen, while pop-up or pull-down menus are requested by the user.

A device whose motion across a desktop or other surface causes an on-screen cursor to move commensurately; today’s mice move on a ball and have one, two, or three buttons.

Raster display

A cathode ray tube on which Images are displayed as patterns of dots, scanned onto the screen sequentially in a predetermined pattern of lines.

Vector display

A cathode ray tube whose gun scans lines, or vectors, onto the screen phosphor.

An area of a computer display, usually one of several, in which a particular program is executing.

In the PARC ball mouse design, the weight of the mouse is transferred to the ball by a swivel device and on one or two casters at the end of the mouse farthest from the wire “tail.” A prototype was built by Xerox’s Electronics Division in El Segundo, Calif., then redesigned by Hawley. The rolling ball turned two perpendicular shafts, with a drum on the end of each that was coated with alternating stripes of conductive and nonconductive material. As the drum turned, the stripes transmitted electrical impulses through metal wipers.

When Apple Computer decided in 1979 to design a mouse for its Lisa computer, the design mutated yet again. Instead of a metal ball held against the substrate by a swivel, Apple used a rubber ball whose traction depended on the friction of the rubber and the weight of the ball itself. Simple pads on the bottom of the case carried the weight, and optical scanners detected the motion of the internal wheels. The device had loose tolerances and few moving parts, so that it cost perhaps a quarter as much to build as previous ball mice.

How the computer mouse gained and lost buttons

The first, wooden, SRI mouse had only one button, to test the concept. The plastic batch of SRI mice bad three side-by-side buttons—all there was room for, Engelbart said. The first PARC mouse bad a column of three buttons-again, because that best fit the mechanical design. Today, the Apple mouse has one button, while the rest have two or three. The issue is no longer 1950—a standard 6-by-10-cm mouse could now have dozens of buttons—but human factors, and the experts have strong opinions.

Said English, now director of internationalization at Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View, Calif.: “Two or three buttons, that’s the debate. Apple made a bad choice when they used only one.” He sees two buttons as the minimum because two functions are basic to selecting an object: pointing to its start, then extending the motion to the end of the object.

William Verplank, a human factors specialist in the group that tested the graphical interface at Xerox from 1978 into the early 1980s, concurred. He told Spectrum that with three buttons, Alto users forgot which button did what. The group’s tests showed that one button was also confusing, because it required actions such as double-clicking to select and then open a file.

“We have agonizing videos of naive users struggling” with these problems, Verplank said. They concluded that for most users, two buttons (as used on the Star) are optimal, if a button means the same thing in every application. English experimented with one-button mice at PARC before concluding they were a bad idea.

“Two or three buttons, that’s the debate. Apple made a bad choice when they used only one.” —William English

More than 1200 of the experimental Alto, developed in 1973 by the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, were distributed to test its windows, menus, and mouse.

Xerox Corp.

But many interface designers dislike multiple buttons, saying that double-clicking a single button to select an item is easier than remembering which button points and which extends. Larry Tesler , formerly a computer scientist at PARC, brought the one-button mouse to Apple, where he is now vice president of advanced technology. The company’s rationale is that to attract novices to its computers one button was as simple as it could get.

More than two million one-button Apple mice are now in use. The Xerox and Microsoft two-button mice are less common than either Apple’s ubiquitous one-button model or the three-button mice found on technical workstations. Dozens of companies manufacture mice today; most are slightly smaller than a pack of cigarettes, with minor variations in shape.

How windows first came to the computer screen

In 1962, Sketchpad could split its screen horizontally into two independent sections. One section could, for example, give a close-up view of the object in the other section. Researchers call Sketchpad the first example of tiled windows, which are laid out side by side. They differ from overlapping windows, which can be stacked on top of each other, or overlaid, obscuring all or part of the lower layers.

Windows were an obvious means of adding functionality to a small screen. In 1969, Engelbart equipped NLS (as the On-Line System he invented at SRI during the 1960s was known, to distinguish it from the Off-Line System known as FLS) with windows. They split the screen into multiple parts horizontally or vertically, and introduced cross-window editing with a mouse.

By 1972, led by researcher Alan Kay , the Smalltalk programming language group at Xerox PARC had implemented their version of windows. They were working with far different technology from Sutherland or Engelbart: by deciding that their images had to be displayed as dots on the screen, they led a move from vector to raster displays, to make it simple to map the assigned memory location of each of those spots. This was the bit map invented at PARC, and made viable during the 1980s by continual performance improvements in processor logic and memory speed.

Experimenting with bit-map manipulation, Smalltalk researcher Dan Ingalls developed the bit-block transfer procedure, known as BitBlt. The BitBlt software enabled application programs to mix and manipulate rectangular arrays of pixel values in on-screen or off-screen memory, or between the two, combining the pixel values and storing the result in the appropriate bit-map location.

BitBlt made it much easier to write programs to scroll a window (move an image through it), resize (enlarge or contract) it, and drag windows (move them from one location to another on screen). It led Kay to create overlapping windows. They were soon implemented by the Smalltalk group, but made clipping harder.

Some researchers question whether overlapping windows offer more benefits than tiled on the grounds that screens with overlapping windows become so messy the user gets lost.

In a tiling system, explained researcher Peter Deutsch, who worked with the Smalltalk group, the clipping borders are simply horizontal or vertical lines from one screen border to another, and software just tracks the location of those lines. But overlapping windows may appear anywhere on the screen, randomly obscuring bits and pieces of other windows, so that quite irregular regions must be clipped. Thus application software must constantly track which portions of their windows remain visible.

Some researchers still question whether overlapping windows offer more benefits than tiled, at least above a certain screen size, on the grounds that screens with overlapping windows become so messy the user gets lost. Others argue that overlapping windows more closely match users’ work patterns, since no one arranges the papers on their physical desktop in neat horizontal and vertical rows. Among software engineers, however, overlapping windows seem to have won for the user interface world.

So has the cut-and-paste editing model that Larry Tesler developed, first for the Gypsy text editor he wrote at PARC and later for Apple. Charles Irby—who worked on Xerox’s windows and is now vice president of development at Metaphor Computer Systems Inc., Mountain View, Calif.—noted, however, that cut-and-paste worked better for pure text-editing than for moving graphic objects from one application to another.

The origin of the computer menu bar

Menus—functions continuously listed onscreen that could be called into action with key combinations—were commonly used in defense computing by the 1960s. But it was only with the advent of BitBlt and windows that menus could be made to appear as needed and to disappear after use. Combined with a pointing device to indicate a user’s selection, they are now an integral part of the user-friendly interface: users no longer need to refer to manuals or memorize available options.

Instead, the choices can be called up at a moment’s notice whenever needed. And menu design has evolved. Some new systems use nested hierarchies of menus; others offer different menu versions—one with the most commonly used commands for novices, another with all available commands for the experienced user.

Among the first to test menus on demand was PARC researcher William Newman, in a program called Markup. Hard on his heels, the Smalltalk group built in pop-up menus that appeared on screen at the cursor site when the user pressed one of the mouse buttons.

Implementation was on the whole straightforward, recalled Deutsch. The one exception was determining whether the menu or the application should keep track of the information temporarily obscured by the menu. In the Smalltalk 76 version, the popup menu saved and restored the screen bits it overwrote. But in today’s multitasking systems, that would not work, because an application may change those bits without the menu’s knowledge. Such systems add another layer to the operating system: a display manager that tracks what is written where.

The production Xerox Star, in 1981, featured a further advance: a menu bar, essentially a row of words indicating available menus that could be popped up for each window. Human factors engineer Verplank recalled that the bar was at first located at the bottom of its window. But the Star team found users were more likely to associate a bar with the window below it, so it was moved to the top of its window.

Apple simplified things in its Lisa and Macintosh with a single bar placed at the top of the screen. This menu bar relates only to the window in use: the menus could be ‘‘pulled down” from the bar, to appear below it. Designer William D. Atkinson received a patent (assigned to Apple Computer) in August 1984 for this innovation.

One new addition that most user interface pioneers consider an advantage is the tear-off menu, which the user can move to a convenient spot on the screen and “pin” there, always visible for ready access.

Many windowing interfaces now offer command-key or keyboard alternatives for many commands as well. This return to the earliest of user interfaces—key combinations—neatly supplements menus, providing both ease of use for novices and for the less experienced, and speed for those who can type faster than they can point to a menu and click on a selection.

How the computer “icon” got its name

Sketchpad had on-screen graphic objects that represented constraints (for example, a rule that lines be the same length), and the Flex machine built in 1967 at the University of Utah by students Alan Kay and Ed Cheadle had squares that represented programs and data (like today’s computer “folders”). Early work on icons was also done by Bell Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada, stemming from efforts to replace the recently legislated bilingual signs with graphic symbols.

But the concept of the computer “icon” was not formalized until 1975. David Canfield Smith, a computer science graduate student at Stanford University in California, began work on his Ph.D. thesis in 1973. His advisor was PARC’s Kay, who suggested that he look at using the graphics power of the experimental Alto not just to display text, but rather to help people program.

David Canfield Smith took the term icon from the Russian Orthodox church, where an icon is more than an image, because it embodies properties of what it represents.

Smith took the term icon from the Russian Orthodox church, where an icon is more than an image, because it embodies properties of what it represents: a Russian icon of a saint is holy and is to be venerated. Smith’s computer icons contained all the properties of the programs and data represented, and therefore could be linked or acted on as if they were the real thing.

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1975, Smith joined Xerox in 1976 to work on Star development. The first thing he did, he said, was to recast his concept of icons in office terms. “I looked around my office and saw papers, folders, file cabinets, a telephone, and bookshelves, and it was an easy translation to icons,” he said.

Xerox researchers developed, tested, and revised icons for the Star interface for three years before the first version was complete. At first they attempted to make the icons look like a detailed photographic rendering of the object, recalled Irby, who worked on testing and refining the Xerox windows. Trading off label space, legibility, and the number of icons that fit on the screen, they decided to constrain icons to a 1-inch (2.5-centimeter) square of 64 by 64 pixels, or 512 eight-bit bytes.

Then, Verplank recalls, they discovered that because of a background pattern based on two-pixel dots, the right-hand side of the icons appeared jagged. So they increased the width of the icons to 65 pixels, despite an outcry from programmers who liked the neat 16-bit breakdown. But the increase stuck, Verplank said, because they had already decided to store 72 bits per side to allow for white space around each icon.

After settling on a size for the icons, the Star developers tested four sets developed by two graphic designers and two software engineers. They discovered that, for example, resizing may cause problems. They shrunk the icon for a person—a head and shoulders—in order to use several of them to represent a group, only to hear one test subject say the screen resolution made the reduced icon look like a cross above a tombstone. Computer graphics artist Norm Cox, now of Cox & Hall, Dallas, Texas, was finally hired to redesign the icons.

Icon designers today still wrestle with the need to make icons adaptable to the many different system configurations offered by computer makers. Artist Karen Elliott, who has designed icons for Microsoft , Apple, Hewlett-Packard Co., and others, noted that on different systems an icon may be displayed in different colors, several resolutions, and a variety of gray shades, and it may also be inverted (light and dark areas reversed).

In the past few years, another concern has been added to icon designers’ tasks: internationalization. Icons designed in the United States often lack space for translations into languages other than English. Elliott therefore tries to leave space for both the longer words and the vertical orientation of some languages.

More than two million of the Apple Macintosh (top), which brought the graphical user interface to personal computers, have been sold. Much of its application software is inconsistent, however: at least three different icons (bottom) can represent address files. The icons are found in Desktop Express from Dow Jones & Co., HyperCard from Apple Computer Inc., and MS Word from Microsoft Corp.

Apple Computer Inc.

The main rule is to make icons simple, clean, and easily recognizable. Discarded objects are placed in a trash can on the Macintosh. On the NeXT Computer System, from NeXT Inc., Palo Alto, Calif.—the company formed by Apple cofounder Steven Jobs after he left Apple—they are dumped into a Black Hole. Elliott sees NeXT’s black hole as one of the best icons ever designed: ”It is distinct; its roundness stands out from the other, square icons, and this is important on a crowded display. It fits my image of information being sucked away, and it makes it clear that dumping something is serious.

English disagrees vehemently. The black hole “is fundamentally wrong,” he said. “You can dig paper out of a wastebasket, but you can’t dig it out of a black hole.” Another critic called the black hole familiar only to “computer nerds who read mostly science fiction and comics,” not to general users.

With the introduction of the Xerox Star in June 1981, the graphical user interface, as it is known today, arrived on the market. Though not a commercial triumph, the Star generated great interest among computer users, as the Alto before it had within the universe of computer designers.

Even before the Star was introduced, Jobs, then still at Apple, had visited Xerox PARC in November 1979 and asked the Smalltalk researchers dozens of questions about the Alto’s internal design. He later recruited Larry Tesler from Xerox to design the user interface of the Apple Lisa.

With the Lisa and then the Macintosh, introduced in January 1983 and January 1984 respectively, the graphical user interface reached the low-cost, high-volume computer market.

At almost $10,000, buyers deemed the Lisa too expensive for the office market. But aided by prizewinning advertising and its lower price, the Macintosh took the world by storm. Early Macs had only 128K bytes of RAM, which made them slow to respond because it was too little memory for heavy graphic manipulation. Also, the time needed for programmers to learn its Toolbox of graphics routines delayed application packages until well into 1985. But the Mac’s ease of use was indisputable, and it generated interest that spilled over into the MS-DOS world of IBM PCs and clones, as well as Unix-based workstations.

Who owns the graphical user interface?

The widespread acceptance of such interfaces, however, has led to bitter lawsuits to establish exactly who owns what. So far, none of several litigious companies has definitively established that it owns the software that implements windows, icons, or early versions of menus. But the suits continue.

Virtually all the companies that make and sell either wheel or ball mice paid license fees to SRI or to Xerox for their patents. Engelbart recalled that SRI patent attorneys inspected all the early work on the interface, but understood only hardware. After looking at developments like the implementation of windows, they told him that none of it was patentable.

At Xerox, the Star development team proposed 12 patents having to do with the user interface. The company’s patent committee rejected all but two on hardware—one on BitBlt, the other on the Star architecture. At the time, Charles Irby said, it was a good decision. Patenting required full disclosure, and no precedents then existed for winning software patent suits.

Microsoft Corp.

Today more than a dozen separate graphical user interfaces run on a variety of personal computers and workstations. The Presentation Manager component of Operating System/2, jointly developed by Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp., is intended to run on several million IBM and compatible personal computers; this display shows that too many onscreen windows can impede clarity.

The most recent and most publicized suit was filed in March 1988, by Apple, against both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard Co., Palo Alto, Calif. Apple alleges that HP’s New Wave interface, requiring version 2.03 of Microsoft’s Windows program, embodies the copyrighted “audio visual computer display” of the Macintosh without permission; that the displays of Windows 2.03 are illegal copies of the Mac’s audiovisual works; and that Windows 2.03 also exceeds the rights granted in a November 198S agreement in which Microsoft acknowledged that the displays in Windows 1.0 were derivatives of those in Apple’s Lisa and Mac.

In March 1989, U.S. District Judge William W. Schwarzer ruled Microsoft had exceeded the bounds of its license in creating Windows 2.03. Then in July 1989 Schwarzer ruled that all but 11 of the 260 items that Apple cited in its suit were, in fact, acceptable under the 1985 agreement. The larger issue—whether Apple’s copyrights are valid, and whether Microsoft and HP infringed on them—will not now be examined until 1990.

Among those 11 are overlapping windows and movable icons. According to Pamela Samuelson, a noted software intellectual property expert and visiting professor at Emory University Law School, Atlanta, Ga., many experts would regard both as functional features of an interface that cannot be copyrighted, rather than “expressions” of an idea protectable by copyright.

But lawyers for Apple—and for other companies that have filed lawsuits to protect the “look and feel’’ of their screen displays—maintain that if such protection is not granted, companies will lose the economic incentive to market technological innovations. How is Apple to protect its investment in developing the Lisa and Macintosh, they argue, if it cannot license its innovations to companies that want to take advantage of them?

If the Apple-Microsoft case does go to trial on the copyright issues, Samuelson said, the court may have to consider whether Apple can assert copyright protection for overlapping windows-an interface feature on which patents have also been granted. In April 1989, for example, Quarterdeck Office Systems Inc., Santa Monica, Calif., received a patent for a multiple windowing system in its Desq system software, introduced in 1984.

Adding fuel to the legal fire, Xerox said in May 1989 it would ask for license fees from companies that use the graphical user interface. But it is unclear whether Xerox has an adequate claim to either copyright or patent protection for the early graphical interface work done at PARC. Xerox did obtain design patents on later icons, noted human factors engineer Verplank. Meanwhile, both Metaphor and Sun Microsystems have negotiated licenses with Xerox for their own interfaces.

To Probe Further

The September 1989 IEEE Computer contains an article, “The Xerox ‘Star’: A Retrospective,” by Jeff Johnson et al., covering development of the Star. “Designing the Star User Interface,’’ [PDF] by David C. Smith et al., appeared in the April 1982 issue of Byte .

The Sept. 12, 1989, PC Magazine contains six articles on graphical user interfaces for personal computers and workstations. The July 1989 Byte includes ‘‘A Guide to [Graphical User Interfaces),” by Frank Hayes and Nick Baran, which describes 12 current interfaces for workstations and personal computers. “The Interface of Tomorrow, Today,’’ by Howard Reingold, in the July 10, 1989, InfoWorld does the same. “The interface that launched a thousand imitations,” by Richard Rawles, in the March 21, 1989, MacWeek covers the Macintosh interface.

The human factors of user interface design are discussed in The Psychology of Everyday Things , by Donald A. Norman (Basic Books Inc., New York, 1988). The January 1989 IEEE Software contains several articles on methods, techniques, and tools for designing and implementing graphical interfaces. The Way Things Work , by David Macaulay (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1988), contains a detailed drawing of a ball mouse.

The October 1985 IEEE Spectrum covered Xerox PARC’s history in “Research at Xerox PARC: a founder’s assessment,” by George Pake (pp. 54-61) and “Inside the PARC: the ‘information architects,’“ by Tekla Perry and Paul Wallich (pp. 62-75).

William Atkinson received patent no. 4,464,652 for the pulldown menu system on Aug. 8, 1984, and assigned it to Apple. Gary Pope received patent no. 4,823,108 , for an improved system for displaying images in “windows” on a computer screen, on April 18, 1989, and assigned it to Quarterdeck Office Systems.

The wheel mouse patent, no. 3,541,541 , “X-Y position indicator for a display system,” was issued to Douglas Engelbart on Nov. 17, 1970, and assigned to SRI International. The ball mouse patent, no. 3,835,464 , was issued to Ronald Rider on Sept. 10, 1974, and assigned to Xerox.

The first selection device tests to include a mouse are covered in “Display-Selection Techniques for Text Manipulation,” by William English, Douglas Engelbart, and Melvyn Berman, in IEEE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics , March 1967.

Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System , by Ivan E. Sutherland (Garland Publishing Inc., New York City and London, 1980), reprints his 1963 Ph.D. thesis.

• Larry Tesler, the Computer Scientist Who Revolutionized the User ... ›
• Kids and Us: The Story of Smalltalk - IEEE Spectrum ›
• Thirty Years Later, the Influence of the Macintosh Can Still Be Felt ... ›
• 50 Years Later, We’re Still Living in the Xerox Alto’s World - IEEE Spectrum ›
• Smalltalk Blew Steve Jobs’s Mind - IEEE Spectrum ›
• Designing the First Apple Macintosh: The Engineers’ Story - IEEE Spectrum ›
• The Lisa Was Apple’s Best Failure - IEEE Spectrum ›
• The History of the Sketchpad Computer Program - A Complete Guide ›
• Graphical user interface - Wikipedia ›

Tekla S. Perry is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum . Based in Palo Alto, Calif., she's been covering the people, companies, and technology that make Silicon Valley a special place for more than 40 years. An IEEE member, she holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Michigan State University.

John Voelcker is the former editor of Green Car Reports. As well as regularly contributing to IEEE Spectrum he has covered auto technologies and energy policy for numerous outlets, including Wired and Popular Science .

IEEE’s Honor Society Expands to More Countries

Video friday: loco-manipulation, smart antennas shape satellite internet tech to come.

Learn / Guides / UI design guide

Back to guides

User interface: what it is and why it matters

Designing a sleek user interface (UI) is like rolling out the red carpet for your guests: it makes the product experience smooth, effortless, and enjoyable—and contributes to a positive impression of your company.

But user interface design isn’t always easy to get right. You need to create the perfect balance of form and function—like giving users the right menu or button exactly when and where they need it.

Last updated

Reading time.

This glossary walks you through what a user interface is, why it’s important, the different types of UIs, and key elements —so you can approach your own product design with confidence.

Design a user interface that captivates customers

Use Hotjar's tools to discover how users interact with your site’s UI elements.

What is a user interface?

A user interface is the surface layer through which users control and communicate with software or hardware . It’s the space of interaction between a person and technology.

For example, if you’re looking for a mattress on a direct-to-consumer (DTC) website, you might see product listings clearly arranged in a grid pattern , find a specific mattress using a search bar , and then click an add-to-cart button . 

At every step, you’re interacting with the user interface: the layout of items on the screen, the photos and graphics that visually guide your way, and the elements like buttons and bars that help you take action.

An excellent user interface is intuitive and enjoyable for those who interact with it. The field of UI design focuses on creating a positive user experience (UX) through the best combination of aesthetic and functional elements. 

User interface elements you need to know

To enhance the user experience, the typical product UI relies on four components. 

1. Input controls

Input controls make it easy for users to enter information . If you’ve ever entered your credit card information on a checkout page, you’ve used input controls. A checkout flow is likely to contain text inputs where you can type directly into a box from your keyboard. 

Other options for input controls include:

Buttons , like the ones you use when you click ‘submit’ 

Radio buttons , which let you select one answer from a list of options

Checkboxes , which let you select one or more answers from a list of options

Dropdown menus , like when you click an arrow and it reveals a list of countries or states for you to select 

2. Containers

Much like the boxes you use to store seasonal decorations, containers group similar items together so that information doesn’t overwhelm the user. 

Types of containers include: 

Accordions , which expand to show more information and collapse to save space and avoid information overload for the user. Think of frequently asked questions (FAQs) sections where the question is always visible, and the answers are visible with a click.

Tables : often the best choice to organize numbers or help shoppers compare options side by side, like available features in tiered software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscriptions

Cards , which bundle information into an easily digestible group. For example, a card might include an overview of product information—a photo, title, description, and price—in a unified rectangular area.

Collaborative presentation SaaS company Pitch uses cards to showcase their pricing plans and tables to compare the features

3. Navigational components 

If you’re moving from one page to another, you’re likely using navigational UI components. These elements save you time by letting you scroll, click, or swipe to land exactly where you want to go. 

Examples of navigational controls include: 

Breadcrumbs , the clickable text that appears at the top of the site to lead you back to where you were before, like Home > Kids > Tops > Sweaters on a clothing retailer's site 

Tabs , which let you organize information as you do in a binder, letting users quickly jump from one page or section to another

Menus , such as when you hover over the ‘Home’ tab on an ecommerce website, and a list of options, including ‘Bed & Bath’ and ‘Kitchen’, appears 

4. Informational components 

Sometimes the best thing you can do to improve UX is to keep the user informed. There’s nothing worse than submitting information into an email capture form, for instance, and not seeing any indication that the submission went through.

Some examples of informational components, also known as display components, include:

Progress bars , like those indicating you need to spend $12 more to get free shipping

Text , such as when you order a SaaS product, and a message pops up with: “Thank you! Your order was received. You’ll receive your access code shortly. Check your inbox for more information.”

Tooltips , which let you hover over an element for more details about what it is or how it works

Notifications or alerts , such as a push notification on a mobile app that reads: "Cha-ching! You received a $450 deposit!"

💡Pro tip: test which user interface elements work best for your users—and which need adjustments. 

Use heatmaps to visualize aggregate data on how people interact with your site’s user interface. Heatmaps use color to show you where visitors click, scroll, and move the most. 

For example, if you see users completely ignoring an important UI element—like a required form field—on a heatmap, you might move it elsewhere or make it easier to complete by turning it into a drop-down menu. 

On the flip side, if you notice your FAQs accordion is getting a lot of attention, you might want to dig deeper into why. What do users need to know before making a decision? Should you move some of the information up to the product description?

Hotjar’s Heatmaps tool lets you visualize how users are interacting with monthly versus annual pricing tabs and product tier cards.

Why is the user interface important?

Imagine you land on a website for a service provider—let’s say a marketing company. You want to learn more about their paid advertising services but don’t see a navigational menu in the upper corner.

You scroll down, and the entire page is written in a 12-point font without any icons or buttons, only a scattering of hyperlinks throughout. Within three seconds, you exit the page—another bounce for the marketing company. 

Without clear UI elements to engage, inform, and guide visitors, your product or website becomes virtually unusable. But when done well, your user interface helps you:

Improve the user experience: UI and UX go hand in hand . Your user interface directly affects your user experience—visitors' interactions and how they feel about those interactions. If your UI is visually appealing, intuitive, and useful, you’ve hit the golden trifecta that results in a top-notch user experience.

A user interface is where and how a person interacts with technology. The other part of the UI is the user experience, or what it's like to interact with that interface. Designing a great user experience often comes back to the ideas of being easy to understand and easy to use.

Acquire customers: your user interface also improves your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. With a good UI, you can increase your average session duration metric, a factor that search engines use to rank your website. When you rank higher, you receive more traffic to your site—which could lead to more customers. 

Build brand loyalty: your products and services go a long way in helping you retain customers, but your user interface is often just as important. A good UI keeps your customers happy, helping them associate feelings of ease and delight with your brand and making them more likely to stick with your business over competitors.

Increase conversions: conversions are when visitors take desired actions, like signing up for your email list or completing checkout. Even minor tweaks to UI aspects—like altering your layout or call-to-action button design— can have a big impact on conversions and revenue.

💡Pro tip: instead of relying on just your instincts or adhering to traditional wisdom, collect data from real users. 

To determine what UI elements needed adjustment, Every.org, a platform that lets visitors donate to more than one million charities, turned to Hotjar Recordings to watch real sessions of users interacting with their site. 

The company’s Senior Product Designer, Dave Sharp, filtered recordings to focus on rage clicks: moments when visitors click multiple times in frustration. Sharp quickly noticed that potential donors got frustrated on a page with two call-to-action (CTA) buttons : ‘add card’ and ‘donate.’ 

Regulations required the company to collect credit card information first, so they couldn’t change the process itself. Instead, they separated the checkout flow into two pages: users would add their card on page one and then select their donation on the next. 

While conventional wisdom says to reduce steps in a checkout flow, a two-page UI approach was just right for Every.org and its customers: donations increased by 29.5%. 

Every.org’s original checkout flow included two CTAs on the same page, which frustrated potential donors.

4 user interface types—and when to use them

As you read this guide, you’re interacting with UI elements like text and images, and you may click on buttons or menus. But this type of user interface—a graphical user interface—is only one type among several. Here are the four main categories of user interfaces:

1. Graphical user interface (GUI)

Used by most major computer operating systems and websites, a GUI (sometimes pronounced ‘gooey’) presents information through elements like windows, menus, icons, and buttons . Users interact with the interface through a device like a mouse or trackpad.

You use graphical user interfaces whenever you hop on your MacBook or PC, open a browser window, and surf the web. GUIs are popular for two reasons: they’re visually attractive and easy to use. You don’t have to memorize complex commands or understand how to code; instead, you can just point and click. 

2. Voice user interface (VUI)

With more than 90 million people installing smart speakers in the US alone, voice user interfaces are more prevalent than ever. A VUI allows people to interact with technology like smart speakers or artificial intelligence (AI) assistants through voice commands. For example, they might turn to their Amazon Echo speaker and ask Amazon’s AI assistant Alexa for today’s weather forecast. 

In addition to making life easier, VUI helps people complete tasks more safely. For example, users can place calls while driving without ever taking their eyes off the road or their hands off the wheel.

Voice-based interfaces are more common these days—think, ‘Hey, Google, turn up the speakers.' 

3. Command-line interface (CLI)

In a command-line user interface, the user interacts with the computer via lines of text. A programmer or system administrator enters text commands into an operating system or application, and the computer executes those commands. 

While not as pretty or as user-friendly as GUIs, CLIs use fewer system resources and are often more efficient for complex tasks involving large amounts of data. For example, a system administrator can use a CLI to easily install software or monitor system health in a multi-server environment.

4. Gesture-based user interface 

A gesture-based user interface is a UI type that lets people interact with a computer through movements . Instead of using a mouse or keyboard to enter or access information, a user might make a simple tapping or swiping gesture to progress to the next screen. 

Built-in sensors take gesture-based interfaces to the next level: users can shake their mobile phone to interact with apps, or control a device completely hands-free by looking at different parts of the screen. 

While the gesture-based user interface is often less precise than other UI types, it allows for a more natural way of interacting with technology.

💡Pro tip: continue to hone your user interface long after you release your product or your site goes live with insights directly from your users. 

Place a Hotjar Feedback widget on any page to give visitors an easy way to provide insights on individual UI elements. 

Or, talk directly to users with Hotjar Engage , where you can easily find people to interview and ask about their experience with your UI.

Hotjar Engage connects you with users who interact with your product, so they can answer questions about their experience in real time

An intuitive UI starts with user insights

Designing a brilliant user interface begins with user insights. To customize your overall UI design and nail each element, you need to know who your users are and what they want. That means you need to collect data and feedback directly from your users—with tools like heatmaps, recordings, feedback, or interviews—to find out exactly what kind of product they want .

The end result will be a smooth, intuitive UI that keeps your users coming back to your product again and again.

FAQs about user interface

A user interface is where and how a person interacts with a product. It consists of all of the visual and informational elements, and the navigational and organizational features of your product. 

For example, all websites must have a user interface; otherwise, they’d be blank! The difference between a good website and a great one often comes down to UI design.

What elements exist in user interface design?

Most UI design elements fall into one of four categories: 

Input controls, which allow users to provide and enter information

Navigational components, which help users go from one point to another

Informational components, which provide useful information or notifications

Containers, which group related information for a more organized appearance

Why is my user interface important?

Your UI is important because it influences the user experience, or how easy or enjoyable it is for visitors to use your product. If users like using your site, they’ll stay longer, which improves your site’s SEO and the likelihood of conversion. Over time, it’ll also help you acquire and retain customers—and boost brand loyalty. 

What types of user interfaces can I choose from?

Different types of technology necessitate different types of user interfaces. The four main categories of user interfaces include: 

Graphical user interface (GUI) : a mostly visual interface most common on websites

Voice user interface (VUI) : a system to interact with software through voice commands

Command-line user interface : a method of interacting with technology by entering text commands

Gesture-based user interface : a UI type that relies on gestures, like eye or hand movements, or manipulating the device itself through tilting or shaking 

Previous chapter

Guide index

• Customer Favourites

Graphical User Interface

Powerpoint Templates

Icon Bundle

Kpi Dashboard

Professional

Business Plans

Swot Analysis

Gantt Chart

Business Proposal

Marketing Plan

Project Management

Business Case

Business Model

Cyber Security

Business PPT

Digital Marketing

Digital Transformation

Human Resources

Product Management

Artificial Intelligence

Company Profile

Acknowledgement PPT

PPT Presentation

Reports Brochures

One Page Pitch

Interview PPT

All Categories

• You're currently reading page 1

Stages // require(['jquery'], function ($) { $(document).ready(function () { //removes paginator if items are less than selected items per page var paginator = $("#limiter :selected").text(); var itemsPerPage = parseInt(paginator); var itemsCount = $(".products.list.items.product-items.sli_container").children().length; if (itemsCount ? ’Stages’ here means the number of divisions or graphic elements in the slide. For example, if you want a 4 piece puzzle slide, you can search for the word ‘puzzles’ and then select 4 ‘Stages’ here. We have categorized all our content according to the number of ‘Stages’ to make it easier for you to refine the results.

Category // require(['jquery'], function ($) { $(document).ready(function () { //removes paginator if items are less than selected items per page var paginator = $("#limiter :selected").text(); var itemsperpage = parseint(paginator); var itemscount = $(".products.list.items.product-items.sli_container").children().length; if (itemscount.

• Business Slides (139)
• Circular (13)
• Cluster (1)
• Complete Decks (10)
• Concepts 1 (1)
• Diagrams (147)

• My presentations

Auth with social network:

Download presentation

We think you have liked this presentation. If you wish to download it, please recommend it to your friends in any social system. Share buttons are a little bit lower. Thank you!

Presentation is loading. Please wait.

Graphical User Interface in Java

Published by Robert York Modified over 8 years ago

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "Graphical User Interface in Java"— Presentation transcript:

Graphic User Interfaces Layout Managers Event Handling.

Event Handling Events and Listeners Timers and Animation.

©TheMcGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display. Chapter 7 Event-Driven Programming and Basic GUI Objects.

COMPSCI 125 Spring 2005 ©TheMcGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display. Chapter 7 : Event-Driven Programming and GUI Objects.

Chapter 7 Event-Driven Programming and Basic GUI Objects.

©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display. 4 th Ed Chapter Chapter 14 GUI and Event-Driven Programming.

1 GUI Elements in Java Nelson Padua-Perez Chau-Wen Tseng Department of Computer Science University of Maryland, College Park.

©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display. Chapter Chapter 14 GUI and Event-Driven Programming.

Chapter 13: Advanced GUIs and Graphics J ava P rogramming: From Problem Analysis to Program Design, From Problem Analysis to Program Design, Second Edition.

GUI and Event-Driven Programming Part 2. Event Handling An action involving a GUI object, such as clicking a button, is called an event. The mechanism.

GUI and event-driven programming An introduction.

Graphical User Interface Components: Part 1

PROGRAMMING REVIEW Lab 2 EECS 448 Dr Fengjun Li and Meenakshi Mishra.

Java Programming Chapter 10 Graphical User Interfaces.

Chapter 13 Advanced GUIs and Graphics. Chapter Objectives Learn about applets Explore the class Graphics Learn about the class Font Explore the class.

1 Event Driven Programming wirh Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) A Crash Course © Rick Mercer.

Java Programming: From Problem Analysis to Program Design, 4e Chapter 12 Advanced GUIs and Graphics.

Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Fifth Edition, (c) 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved Chapter 13 Creating User.

About project

© 2024 SlidePlayer.com Inc. All rights reserved.

Graphical User Interface

Apr 05, 2019

410 likes | 620 Views

Graphical User Interface. ITI 1121 N. El Kadri. Plan - agenda. • Graphical components • Model-View-Controller • Observer/Observable. AWT.

Share Presentation

• graphical user interfaces
• borderlayout east
• void square
• text fields

Presentation Transcript

Graphical User Interface ITI 1121 N. El Kadri

Plan - agenda • Graphical components • Model-View-Controller • Observer/Observable

AWT • The Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) is the oldest set of classes used to build graphical user interfaces (GUI) in Java. It has been part of all the Java releases. • A more recent and improved toolkit is called Swing. • For this introduction, we will focus on AWT.

Components/Containers • A graphical element is called a component. Accordingly, there is a class called Component that defines the characteristics that are common to all components. Components include: windows, buttons, checkboxes, menus, text fields, scroll bars, etc.

The components that contain other components are called containers. Accordingly, there is a class called Container that defines the characteristics that are common to all the containers.

AWT is a rich source of examples of the use of inheritance. A Component defines a collection of methods that are common to all the graphical objects, such as setBackground( Color c ) and getX().

Components/Containers – Cont’d • A Container will contain other graphical components, and therefore declares a method add( Component component ) and setLayout(LayoutManager mgr ). • A Window is a Container that is not contained in any other Container. It defines the methods show() and addWindowListener(WindowListener l ).

Hello World -1- • A Frame is a top-level window with a title and a border. import java.awt.*; public class HelloWorld { public static void main( String args[] ) { Frame f = new Frame( "Hello World!" ); f.setSize( 200,300 ); f.setVisible( true ); } }  a top-level component is one that is not contained within any other component.

DrJava • Alternatively, use DrJava to create and experiment with graphical objects. Use the interactions window and type each of the following statements one by one. > import java.awt.*; > Frame f = new Frame( "Hello World!" ); > f.setSize( 100, 200 ); > f.setVisible( true ); > f.setVisible( false ); > f.setVisible( true ); > f.setVisible( false ); • You will see that a Frame of object is not visible unless you make it visible.

Hello World -2- • Let’s create instead a specialized Frame that has the required characteristics for this application. import java.awt.*; public class MyFrame extends Frame { public MyFrame( String title ) { super( title ); setSize( 200,300 ); setVisible( true ); } } Which would be used as follows: import java.awt.*; public class Run { public static void main( String args[] ) { Frame f = new MyFrame( "Hello World" ); } }

MyFrame is a specialized Frame, which is a specialized Container, therefore, it may contain other components. import java.awt.*; public class MyFrame extends Frame { public MyFrame( String title ) { super( title ); add( new Label( "Some text" ) ); setSize( 200,300 ); setVisible( true ); } }

LayoutManager • When adding new components, we would like to have control over the placement of the objects (components). • A layout manager is an object responsible for placing and sizing the components in a container. • LayoutManager is an interface and Java provides several implementations: FlowLayout, BorderLayout and GridLayout are the main ones. • FlowLayout adds the components from left to right, from top to bottom, this is the default layout manager for a Panel. • BorderLayout is a layout that divides the container into zones: north, south, east, west and center, this is the default layout manager for a Frame. • GridLayout divides the container into m×n zones (2 dimensional grid). The Java library has approximately 20 layout manager implementations.

BorderLayout import java.awt.*; public class MyFrame extends Frame { public MyFrame( String title ) { super( title ); add(new Label( "North" ),BorderLayout.NORTH ); add(new Label( "South" ),BorderLayout.SOUTH ); add(new Label( "East" ),BorderLayout.EAST ); add(new Label( “West" ),BorderLayout.WEST ); add(new Label( "Center" ),BorderLayout.CENTER ); setSize( 200,300 ); setVisible( true ); } }

FlowLayout import java.awt.*; public class MyFrame extends Frame { public MyFrame( String title ) { super( title ); setLayout( new FlowLayout() ); add( new Label( "-a-" ) ); add( new Label( "-b-" ) ); add( new Label( "-c-" ) ); add( new Label( "-d-" ) ); add( new Label( "-e-" ) ); setSize( 200,300 ); setVisible( true ); } }

Panel • A Panel is the simplest Container. • It can be used to regroup several components and may have a different layout than the container that it is part of.

import java.awt.*; public class MyFrame extends Frame { public MyFrame( String title ) { super( title ); setLayout( new BorderLayout() ); add( new Label( "Nord" ),BorderLayout.NORTH ); add( new Label( "Est" ),BorderLayout.EAST ); add( new Label( "Ouest" ),BorderLayout.WEST ); add( new Label( "Centre" ),BorderLayout.CENTER ); Panel p = new Panel(); p.setLayout( new FlowLayout() ); p.add( new Label( "-a-" ) ); p.add( new Label( "-b-" ) ); p.add( new Label( "-c-" ) ); p.add( new Label( "-d-" ) ); p.add( new Label( "-e-" ) ); add( p,BorderLayout.SOUTH ); setSize( 200,300 ); setVisible( true ); } }

Event-driven programming • Graphical user interfaces are programmed different from most applications. • In an event-driven application, the program waits for something to occur, the user clicks a button or presses a key. • An event is an object that represents the action of the user. • In Java, the components are the source of the events. • A component generates an event or is the source of an event. For example, • When a button is pressed and released, AWT sends an instance of ActionEvent to the button, by calling processEvent on the button.

ActionListener • To handle the events that will be generated by the button, one needs to add (sometimes we say register) an object that implements the interface ActionListener.

import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; public class Square extends Frame { Button button = new Button( "Square" ); TextField input = new TextField(); public Square() { super( "Square GUI" ); setLayout( new GridLayout( 1,2 ) ); add( button ); add( input ); button.addActionListener( new SquareActionListener( this ) ); pack(); show(); } protected void square() { int v = Integer.parseInt( input.getText() ); input.setText( Integer.toString( v*v ) ); } }

The interface ActionListener lists only one method actionPerformed(ActionEvent e). • A SquareActionListener object must know which method square to call, therefore, it has an instance variable that designates the Square object, and this variable is initialized by the constructor. class SquareActionListener implements ActionListener { private Square appl; SquareActionListener( Square appl ) { this.appl = appl; } public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent e ) { appl.square(); } }

Alternatively, the class Square could be handling the event, as shown on the following slide.

import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; public class Square extends Frame implements ActionListener { Button button = new Button( "Square" ); IntField input = new IntField(); public Square() { super(" Square GUI" ); setLayout( new GridLayout( 1,2 ) ); add( button ); add( input ); input.setValue( 2 ); addWindowListener( new SquareWindowAdapter( this ) ); button.addActionListener( this ); pack(); show(); } protected void square() { int v = input.getValue(); input.setValue( v*v ); } public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent e ) { square(); } }

class SquareWindowAdapter extends WindowAdapter { private Square appl; SquareWindowAdapter( Square appl ) { this.appl = appl; } public void windowClosing( WindowEvent e ) { System.exit(0); } } class IntField extends TextField { public int getValue() { return Integer.parseInt( getText() ); } public void setValue( int v ) { setText( Integer.toString( v ) ); } }

Let’s add a button to quit the application. The class Square will be the event-handler for both buttons. Therefore, the method actionPerformed must be able to distinguish between an event that originated from pressing the button square and one that originated from pressing the button quit; fortunately, the event encapsulates this information, see method getSource().

import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; public class Square extends Frame implements ActionListener { Button bSquare = new Button( "Square" ); Button bQuit = new Button( "Quit" ); IntField input = new IntField(); public Square() { super( "Square GUI" ); setLayout( new GridLayout( 1,3 ) ); add( bSquare ); bSquare.addActionListener( this ); add( input ); input.setValue( 2 ); add( bQuit ); bQuit.addActionListener( this ); addWindowListener( new SquareWindowAdapter( this ) ); pack(); show(); } protected void square() { int v = input.getValue(); input.setValue( v*v ); }

public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent e ) { if ( e.getSource() == bSquare ) { square(); } else if ( e.getSource() == bQuit ) { System.exit(0); } } } class SquareWindowAdapter extends WindowAdapter { private Square appl; SquareWindowAdapter( Square appl ) { this.appl = appl; } public void windowClosing( WindowEvent e ) { System.exit( 0 ); } } class IntField extends TextField { public int getValue() { return Integer.parseInt( getText() ); } public void setValue( int v ) { setText( Integer.toString(v) ); } }

To close the application when the closing button is clicked add the call addWindowListener(. . . ). import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; public class Square extends Frame { Button button = new Button( "Square" ); TextField input = new TextField(); public Square() { super( "Square GUI" ); setLayout( new GridLayout( 1,2 ) ); addWindowListener( new WindowAdapter() { public void windowClosing( WindowEvent e ) { System.exit(0); } } add( button ); add( input ); button.addActionListener( new SquareActionListener( this ) ); pack(); show(); } protected void square() { int v = Integer.parseInt( input.getText() ); input.setText( Integer.toString( v*v ) ); } }

The method square retrieves the user input, converts it to an int and puts back the square value in the text field. private void square() { int v = Integer.parseInt( input.getText() ); input.setText( Integer.toString( v*v ) ); }

Instead, it might come handy to have a specialized version of the text field that handles the String to int and int to String conversions for us. Let’s create a new subclass called IntField: class IntField extends TextField { public int getValue() { return Integer.parseInt( getText() ); } public void setValue( int v ) { setText( Integer.toString( v ) ); } }

which would replace the TextField in our application: import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; public class Square extends Frame { Button button = new Button( "Square" ); IntField input = new IntField(); public Square() { ... } private void square() { int v = input.getValue(); input.setValue( v*v ); } }

class IntField extends TextField { public int getValue() { return Integer.parseInt( getText() ); } public void setValue( int v ) { setText( Integer.toString( v ) ); } }

Nested Components • Fancier presentations often require nested components. • The following example illustrates the use of a Panel to contain two buttons, the layout of that Panel is GridLayout while the top-level widow uses a BorderLayout

public class Square extends Frame { private static final String newline = System.getProperty( "line.separator" ); Button button = new Button( "Square" ); IntField input = new IntField(); TextArea output = new TextArea( 5, 40 ); public Square() { // ... setLayout( new BorderLayout() ); add( output, "Center" ); Panel bottom = new Panel(); bottom.setLayout( new GridLayout( 1,2 ) ); bottom.add( button ); bottom.add( input ); add( bottom, "South" ); pack(); show(); } // ... }

Next Time… • Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern • Observer/Observable

• More by User

Graphical User Interface Design

Graphical User Interface Design. Fall 2006. © 2006 Christopher C. Whitehead Assistant Professor Columbus State University http://csc.colstate.edu/whitehead. What Comprises Good Design?. Understanding of: people, how we see, understand, and think

902 views • 53 slides

Graphical User Interface Programming

Graphical User Interface Programming. Dr. Susan McKeever (not me) Email: [email protected] www.comp.dit.e/rlawlor. UI Programming. At the end of the course you will be able to: Develop GUI applications Use standard UI components Develop custom UI components And… Program in Java

796 views • 59 slides

Graphical User Interface. Jayden Sedunary. Introduction. For those non computer literate people , a Graphical User Interface is a type of interface item that allows people to interact with programs in more ways than typing.

410 views • 8 slides

Graphical User Interface . Features of a GUI. Consistency of Elements Functionality Navigation Borders and white space Instructions to the user Inclusive design factors. Consistency of Elements. Consistency: Colour of forms, controls and text Size and Layout Buttons/Controls

229 views • 8 slides

Graphical User Interface (GUI)

Graphical User Interface (GUI). A GUI allows user to interact with a program visually. GUIs are built from GUI components. A GUI component is an object with which the user interacts via the mouse and keyboard. Some basic components. Label - An area in which icons or text can be displayed

252 views • 11 slides

Graphical User Interface. The Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) is a Java environment that allows applets and applications present information to the user and invite the user’s interaction using a GUI. java.awt. java.applet. Object. javax.swing. Component. Component. Others. Button. Button.

353 views • 21 slides

Graphical User Interface (GUI). Pemrograman Berorientasi Obyek. Abstract Window Toolkit. Menyediakan komponen-komponen GUI yang digunakan di semua aplikasi Java & Java applet Berisi class-class yang dapat diturunkan dan propertis-propertisnya dapat diwariskan

565 views • 34 slides

ROOT Graphical User Interface

ROOT Graphical User Interface. Ilka Antcheva , Bertrand Bellenot, Valeri Fine, Valeriy Onuchin, Fons Rademakers. Overview. Main Goals TVirtualX Interface ROOT and Qt Application Example GUI Widgets Graphics Editor GUI Builder Tree Viewer Undo/Redo Tools. Main Goals.

320 views • 20 slides

Graphical User Interface Testing

Graphical User Interface Testing. Graphical User Interfaces. A graphical user interface ( GUI ) is composed of objects (buttons, menus) using metaphors familiar in real life.

1.15k views • 29 slides

Graphical User Interface (GUI). Java API. GUI. Contains 1 label, 1 text box and 2 buttons. Contains 3 buttons, 3 image icons , and 3 labels with text. Window Objects. A GUI contains many objects in a window. Classes for creating window objects are found in javax.swing package.

429 views • 23 slides

Graphical User Interface. Dr. Abraham Professor UTPA. Forms. Forms used to create GUIs for programs and it is a container for controls and components. Active window has a highlighted title bar and It has the focus

207 views • 12 slides

Graphical User Interface. GUI. A graphical user interface (GUI) is a pictorial interface to a program. A good GUI can make programs easier to use by providing them with a consistent appearance and with intuitive controls like pushbuttons, list boxes, sliders, menus, and so forth.

558 views • 24 slides

Graphical User Interface. Chapter 7. Java Foundation Classes. Use the Java Foundation Classes (JFC) to create a graphical user interface for your application. Two sets of JFC classes AWT (Abstract Windowing toolkit) Directs the underlying OS to draw its own built-in components

738 views • 58 slides

157 views • 12 slides

317 views • 29 slides

Graphical User Interface (GUI). Ch 14, 15. Payroll Example. Creating a GUI Application. Create a new project Choose “ Windows Application ” template A blank Form will be created Design the form using the GUI designer Add other necessary classes Add event-handling code

490 views • 35 slides

Graphical User Interface (GUI). Chapter Objectives. Learn about basic GUI components Explore how the GUI components JFrame , JLabel , JTextField , and JButton work

569 views • 55 slides