Interaction with information systems is facilitated and directly
shaped by the user interface. The ultimate success of an information
system, to a large degree, depends on its UI. This course will
concentrate on design principles that support accuracy,
efficiency,effectiveness, transparency, portability, scaling, and
maintenance of user interface software. Students are expected to have
some prior experience with programming*, Basic Java design constructs
dealing with data structures, data and object manipulation, event
handeling, and interation will be taught. There will be serveral
hands-on activities in the class, including software development
assignments and a semster-long project. To promote effective
interation and system use, studetns are expected to approach these
activities from a user-centric perspective. Hence, in addition to
mastering the intricacies of Java libraries, students will learn
about task analysis, requirements specification, and usability
testing.

Course Objectives:
Understand fundamental programming constructs relevant to interface
design
Program using graphical components available from code libraries
Be able to conduct requirements analysis and design implementation
Become familiarized with multimedia and networking features of JAVA
Learn basic user interface principles through application design
Perform usability evaluation and redesign
Improving retrieval and analysis of information by designing
innovative interfaces will be a key thrust in the class. In previous
courses, we used APIs of various publicly available resources to
design new and different interfaces for them. APIs of Amazon, Google,
MSN, and other resources will be discussed in the class and students
will be encouraged to develop and test new user interfaces for these
familiar resources.
*No past JAVA experience is required