Complex GUI Architecture Discussion?

XNuke asks: "I have been searching for intelligent discussion (on dead trees or otherwise) of the issues involved in designing very complex GUIs. Things on the level of TecPlot, AutoCad, 3DS, etc, where there may be very many different views of the same data and there are many degrees of freedom for the user. I am not interested in 'where to put the buttons', but rather the nuts and bolts of making the 'Well Designed UI' work. I guess I am looking for a sort of 'Design Patterns applied to a big deskptop application' sort of discussion. It is no problem to find discussions of Model-View-Controller concepts at the component level, but at the application level there seems to be nothing. Too often the architectural level discussions encompass non-interactive, server side design issues and not the extremely chaotic problems a client side application with many degrees of freedom has. Short of wading through megabytes of source code for KWord et. al., does anyone know of any digested information? There is obviously no 'One Solution' to this, but there must be something out there."

Comments

Human Factors

[denubis]

I'd recommend starting with Norman's The design of every day things. Then, if you're still interested, look over human factors resources. There are very large books that have been written on this question.

Re:Human Factors

[Anonymous Coward]

Ive found Edward Tuftes books to provide a good basis for this kind of development. His focus medium is print (mostly) but I think the message is applicable to computer display as well. All Implimentation details considered, your biggest problem is the meaningful display of multivariate data.

http://www.edwardtufte.com/290901521/tufte/books _v dqi

Re:Human Factors

[retrovince]

What does any of Apple's marketing have to do with anything? They have a completely workable interface and platform that Microsoft still borrows heavily from. I just built an overclocked P4 running at 3.06 Ghz in order to accomplish some video work that most people with stock Macs can do out of the box.

Re:Human Factors

[sporty]

You do realize, that in some applications, risc and cisc can kick the others ass just by the way and types of things that are done.

As for the common title bar thing.. it's a matter of preference, right? I like the single titlebar thing. Leaves more room for my apps to be rendered in.

Re:Human Factors

[Suppafly]

I just built an overclocked P4 running at 3.06 Ghz in order to accomplish some video work that most people with stock Macs can do out of the box.


What does that prove? There isn't anything you can do with a 'stock' desktop mac out of the box that you couldn't do on a cheaper pc.

Re:Human Factors

[NanoGator]

"I just built an overclocked P4 running at 3.06 Ghz in order to accomplish some video work that most people with stock Macs can do out of the box. "

Care to substantiate that claim? If you had to overclock a P4, then I would assume you're doing something in real-time. Since you're doing 'video work' in real time, my first guess would be that you're doing DV stuff.

I started DV work on a P3 500 machine. I've seen real-time effects with video done on 1gig machines. (I.e. Newtek's Video Toaster 2)

Unfortunately, since your post is all claim and no data, I can only make assumptions. So ya wanna clarify why you needed to overclock a P4 to do what a Mac already does?

I'll tell you right now: I work in video and I work in 3D, Macs are nice but few are flocking towards them because they're quicker at anything.

Re:Human Factors

[CaptDeuce]

These are the same people who think having one common title bar that is shared by all people is a good thing ...

Sorry, but your statement makes no sense. Are you speaking about the use of one menu bar shared by all windows of an application?

If yes, there are two major advantages to this design: menus are always in the same place, and one menu bar takes up less screen space than multiple menu bars.

... and still refused to admit they were stupid to choose cooperative multitasking instead of premptive multitasking.

Whoa. They didn't choose; the situation was dicatated by the fact the until System 6 there was NO multitasking! Cooperative multitasking was the quickest way to implement multitasking without breaking existing applications. Apple stated very early on that they would eventually implement preemptive multitasking but, alas, it never came to pass. The endeavor died with the failure of Copeland. Then Apple bought NeXT.

And lets not forget the whole mhz myth marketing scheme. I think you should take anything Apple tells you with a block of salt.

Don't you mean the Intel Mhz myth? Where a higher clock speed CPU is automatically faster than a lower clock speed CPU just because one number is bigger than the other?

Re:Human Factors

[cpt kangarooski]

Actually, there was multitasking to a ridiculously limited extent in System 1.0, if you consider DA's.

But more realistically, there was _still_ multitasking earlier. MultiFinder was present in System 5.0 (remember that Apple's versioning was stupid until about 7.5.5), and Switcher was even earlier, though pretty poorly thought out in terms of UI.

AutoCAD

[qurob]

I wouldn't call their interface 'good' by any means.

Mac gets it right.

[Faggot]

Macintosh gets UI design right with Interface Builder (which came from NeXTSTEP). I cannot recommend it enough.

Re:Mac gets it right.

[russellh]

Leonardo used paintbrushes. That doesn't help us though.

Re:Mac gets it right.

[furballphat]

Actually, Interface Builder lets you specify 'springs' to make GUIs resizable in very intelligent ways.

Re:The Sniper has been identified ...

[Zeebs]

Aren't you a chipper fellow.

The gui acid test

[Anonymous Coward]

If your average grandma can sit down and use it the first time, then it's userfriendly.
Simple but true.

Anything by Alan Cooper

[Krelnik]

Check out anything by Alan Cooper. His "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" is more of a rant than a guidebook, but still excellent reading. "About Face" is probably more of what you want.

He would call what you are talking about "interaction design" not "interface design". The Inmates book makes a good case for how the two are different and why interaction design is a better approach.

Don't create an HTML interface

[Petronius]

Tt just won't support a complex GUI: no drag & drop, no modal windows, stateless client model, weak widget set, poor window-to-window interaction, poor browser-to-OS interaction, etc.
my $.02

Re:Carnegie Mellon's Human Comuter Interaction...

[back_pages]

Hehe, I justed noticed the funny typo. Interpreting the word as it sounds, the question should be...

So how many Carnegie Mellon grad students does it take to figure out what a middle finger means?

My example of a good gooey

[Didion Sprague]

Well, I've found -- for me, at least -- that if I can make a good GUI if I stick my pinky up my ass.

It's quick, simple, and gets the job done.

Be warned, however, that if you plan any serious gooey ass exploration, don't go smoking any Madagascar Robusto cigarillos. My mom's boyfriend brought some of those home from Bermuda and those things *require* an industrial air mover near any bathroom.

Yes, this is sick and disgusting -- and will most certainly be mod'd off-topic by the do-good-imps, but sweet mother of god, sometimes the truth needs to be spoken. Even if it is poopee humor.

Is this a front for Google Answers? /. CONSPIRACY!

[teamhasnoi]

Does Slashdot run a front for Google Answers?

In exchange for $$$, Slashdot runs an Ask Slashdot with the chosen Google Question. Free answers from Geeks, $$$ for Slashdot, exposure for Google Answers. HMMMMM.

Or not. What was the question again?

False premises

[0xdeadbeef]

The computer is not both the "tool and master". The programmer is the master and the computer is his trusted henchman. The users are the tools.