A User Interface Glossary
When the footprint is tiny, classic human interaction concepts loom large.
UI development involves the application front end, aiming to intuitively bridge the gap between a computer display and the user’s eyes, hands and mind. Focused on user-centered design, user modeling, user task needs analysis, demographics, human-computer and human-human communication needs and wants, human-human and human-computer interaction needs and wants, UI development involves traditional phases: planning, research, analysis, design, implementation, evaluation, documentation and training. Sound familiar? Simply put, UI developers are designing metaphors, mental models, navigation, interaction and appearance.
Here’s a quick glossary of terms:
Metaphors are fundamental concepts communicated by means of words, images,
sounds, tastes, smells and tactile experiences. In computer operating systems,
metaphors substitute for collections or individual elements, and help users
understand, remember and enjoy the entities and relationships of computer-based
communication systems. Metaphors can be overarching, or communicate specific
aspects of UIs.
An example of an overarching metaphor is the “desktop” that substitutes for the computer’s operating system, functions and data. Examples of specific concepts are the trash can, windows and their controls, pages, shopping carts, chat rooms and blogs (Weblogs or Web-based diaries). The pace of metaphor invention, including neologisms (verbal metaphor invention), is likely to increase because of rapid development and distribution of mutable products and services, through mobile devices as well as the Web. Some researchers are predicting the end of the desktop metaphor era and the emergence of fundamentally new metaphors for mobile devices.
Mental models are structures or organizations of data, functions, tasks, roles and people in groups at work or play, or on the way. Examples of related, but not identical versions of mental models are user models (which include concepts of personas, goals, needs, desires, roles and so on), user cognitive models, user task models and designer models. Mental models exhibit hierarchies of content, tools, specific functions, media, roles, goals, tasks and so on. Some professionals speak of goal-oriented design, user-centered design, task-centered design and so on. These orientations emphasize careful, close analysis of varying mental models.
Navigation involves movement through the mental models—in other words, through content and tools. UI elements that facilitate such movement include menus, windows, dialogue boxes, control panels, icons and tool palettes. In mobile devices, navigation with small screens often demands many clicks to get to pages of content, and innovative approaches to labeling items for easy understanding.
Interaction includes input/output techniques, status displays and other feedback, both locally and globally. In today’s computer platforms, local examples include the detailed behavior characteristics of equipment such as keyboards, mice, pens or microphones for input; visual display screens, loudspeakers or headsets for output; and the use of drag-and-drop selection/action sequences. Global examples include context issues, usage scenarios and task activities at a larger scale. Mobile phones have developed several paradigms for standard buttons or hard keys to push to start and stop calls, and standard soft keys to select for other functions. Many devices offer a tiny keyboard to enter text or a pen-stylus to select tiny symbols.
Appearance includes all essential perceptual attributes: visual, auditory and tactile characteristics. Examples include choices of colors, fonts, animation style, verbal style (for example, verbose versus terse or informal versus formal language), sound cues and vibration modes.
Information visualization, a special aspect of UIs, is the means for
communicating structures and processes, which may be shown in abstract or representational
forms. Information visualization techniques include tables, forms, charts, maps
and diagrams. The term emphasizes visualization, but is intended to include
other sensory means to communicate information. In the mobile device world,
designers are often in an extreme situation of very little visual space in which
to show anything at all. This restriction can lead to breakthrough, creative
approaches like innovative topological diagrams, or using voice and visual multimodal
techniques to enable users to explore complex information spaces. Information
visualization on wrist-top devices is probably the most demanding and intriguing
of these domains.
—A. Marcus
