Since advanced programming languages and free-to-use predefined templates made bulk computer software generating more amateur-friendly,

a large amount of beginner-style computer software with laggy animations, suckky interfaces and buggy features are hitting the market at an unbelievably crazy speed, and still rising... Personally speaking I hate these semi-finished products. However, as a fact that I am also at the very beginning stage of programming practices, I did some research on what effective and elegant user interface (UI) designs look like and how they benefit modern computer software. Moreover, I hope these successors rules would help me one day when I first release my own computer software to the public.

First of All: Good Code Good Design, Bad Design Bad Program No matter which operating system you are using on your computer, from Windows XP to

Windows 8 or from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, despite those security enhancements and functional improvements after each update, you may gradually notice that both Microsoft and Apple are trying to make their systems look nicer even you do not pay much attention. I remembered Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, Love of beauty is taste. Yes, everyone prefers beautiful things, people or places, etc. They certainly want to see a well-designed interface when they download a new computer software. Yet beautiful and well-designed sometimes misguide fresh programmers, they would try their best to code a useful program, then just drag-n-drop megabytes of good-looking pictures into a so-called UI template and let computer itself finish the job. Programmers who do things like that do not deeply understand the word design at all. As Baker, van der Hoek, Ossher, and Petre (2012) wrote in their article, Design

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isnt pure: it involves intuition, engineering, drawing upon domain knowledge, explorations of multiple lines of thought, and mistakes. (p. 30) A proper UI design should include not only attractive pictures but also easily accessible function entries, commonly recognized indicators and feedbacks, user-friendly layouts, etc.

Consider the Low-Literacy Group: Not Everyone Is Trained Computer Expert When I saw words low-literacy, the first thing came to my mind was people from higher

ages. In the last year, Darejeh and Singh published a review on Journal of Computer Science also mentioned this situation. There is a strong relationship between age and software preferences. Each age group has specific needs and specific understanding of software environment. Therefore, we have to discover the needs of each age group and consider their limitations in understanding and working with software. (Darejeh & Singh, 2013, p. 1444) Unlike young teenagers like us, people who are the same age as my parents or grandparents did not grow up with computers and smartphones around them all the time. Once it took nearly ten minutes for my grandfather to turn on his new cellphone, open the Phone application, and finally dial my number. Even today, I still do not understand why he tried to find physical numerical keyboard on a touchscreen-enabled iPhone when he could clearly see a tab named keyboard under his finger; neither do I comprehend the action that he pushed the Home button to make the call instead of hitting the handset icon at the bottom of screen. Yet all these fact suggest the elders sometimes would not think things as we do. Therefore, for computer software UI designers, they should keep in mind that elder users need more text support to identify software components and prevent potential errors. Without 2

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appropriate feedback, they cannot complete complex tasks successfully on their own. (Darejeh & Singh, 2013, p. 1444) Children, on the other hand, do not afraid of trying new things. When elder people struggle on finding out what does a button do before tapping it, mischievous kids tend to push it first and see what happens next. According to Darejeh and Sighn (2013), in an appropriate UI design for children, computer software developers should use highly visual menus and icons, animations, sound and message boxes, and create an environment that has many guidelines to prevent errors. (Darejeh & Singh, 2013, p. 1445) When a computer software is filled with long small-font texts, multiple complex components, and without a brief tutorial, it would likely ruin kids interests at the very beginning. Besides, study shows that users living in rural areas mostly have lower computer literacy than users living in big cities. If such a computer software is targeted for that specific group of people, developers may consider changing words used for explanation and guidance purposes. (Emmanuel & Muyingi, 2012)

User Interface Reengineering: It Is Cool to Call Professionals As mentioned above, a computer software with a better-looking UI is more likely to beat

one with classic design. However, not everyone is capable of designing such an attractive interface. Nevertheless, do not worry about it so much, a study showed that opportunities are arising for the low-effort high-payoff reengineering of existing interfaces that will typically require just several weeks to implement. (Plaisant, Rose, Shneiderman, & Vanniamparampil, 1997, p. 66) Software developers can always seek professionals to finish their work. 3

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According to Plaisant et al., most computer software reengineering projects are mainly focused on these following aspects. Documentation is the first step. Providing a comprehensive users manual and a quick-reference guide can help user perform their functions more competently. The next process is to improve system access, such as increasing system speed and reliability, reducing number of steps to login to the system, etc. Data display is another potential for all projects using color, sorting and grouping of fields, and highlighting. Some small changes can make good effort, for example, screens using only uppercase letters can be made more readably by using mixed characters and bolding important data. Error and notice messages regulation is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to improve an existing system. More information can be conveyed by making messages more specific and by providing constructive guidance to the user. Finally, additional functionality that could be easily integrated would greatly enhance user performance and satisfaction. (Plaisant, Rose, Shneiderman, & Vanniamparampil, 1997, p. 70)

The Changing Interface: With Automatic Detection of Users Preferences An idea published in 2010 by Ghazarian and Noorhosseini makes me start to inspire the next

big change in human-computer interaction. We all know, although different computer software may have user interfaces way far from others, one specific software would show the same layout each time user launches it. What if this particular interface is dynamic, interaction-based and can change according to users preferences and habits? In the 2010 experiment, Ghazarian and Noorhosseini used a dataset yo train their classifiers. Frequently occurring user interface events were logged while users were performing the task 4

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with their software. The duration of the HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) events ranges from less than one second to several years. (Ghazarian & Noorhosseini, 2010, p. 119) By utilizing and integrating this technique along with data analysis tools, computer software developers could build an always-learning interaction-based dynamic software interface in the not-too-distant future.

References
Baker, A., van der Hoek, A., Ossher, H., & Petre, M. (2012). Guest Editors' Introduction: Studying Professional Software Design. IEEE Software, 28-33. Darejeh, A., & Singh, D. (2013). A Review on User Interface Design Principles to Increase Software Usability for Users with Less Computer Literacy. Journal of Computer Science, 1443-1450. Emmanuel, E. A., & Muyingi, H. N. (2012). A Mobile User Interface for Low-Literacy Users in Rural South Africa. Global Journal of Mathematical Sciences, 35-45. Ghazarian, A., & Noorhosseini, S. M. (2010). Automatic Detection of Users' Skill Levels Using HighFrequency User Interface Events. User Modeling and User - Adapted Interaction, 109-146. Plaisant, C., Rose, A., Shneiderman, B., & Vanniamparampil, A. J. (1997). Low-Effort, High-Payoff User Interface Reengineering. IEEE Software, 66-72.