Object-oriented user interface: Difference between revisions

Content deleted Content added
cat
No edit summary
 
(16 intermediate revisions by 9 users not shown)
Line 1:
{{for|Object-oriented user interface as used on Wikipedia|mw:OOUI}}{{Further|Object–action interface}}{{short description|Type of user interface}}
In [[computing]], an '''object-oriented user interface''' ('''OOUI''') is a type of [[user interface]] based on an [[object-oriented programming]] [[Interface metaphor|metaphor]], and describes most modern operating systems ("[[Object-oriented operating system|object-oriented operating systems]]") such as [[MacOS]] and [[Unix]]. In an OOUI, the user interacts explicitly with objects that represent entities in the ___domain that the application is concerned with. Many vector drawing applications, for example, have an OOUI – the objects being lines, circles and canvases. The user may explicitly select an object, alter its properties (such as size or colour), or invoke other actions upon it (such as to move, copy, or re-align it). If a business application has any OOUI, the user may be selecting and/or invoking actions on objects representing entities in the business ___domain such as customers, products or orders.
 
[[Jakob Nielsen (usability consultant)|Jakob Nielsen]] defines the OOUI in contrast to function-oriented interfaces: "Object-oriented interfaces are sometimes described as turning the application inside-out as compared to function-oriented interfaces. The main focus of the interaction changes to become the users' data and other information objects that are typically represented graphically on the screen as icons or in windows."<ref name="Nielsen">Nielsen, J., Usability Engineering. 1993, San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann / Academic Press</ref>
Line 6 ⟶ 7:
* Users perceive and act on objects
* Users can classify objects based on how they behave
* In the context of what users are trying to do, all the user interface objects fit together into a coherent overall representation.<ref name="Collins">Collins, D., Designing Object-oriented User interfaces. 1995, Redwood City, CA: Benjamin/Cummings</ref>
 
[[Jef Raskin]] suggests that the most important characteristic of an OOUI is that it adopts a 'noun-verb', rather than a 'verb-noun' style of interaction, and that this has several advantages in terms of usability.<ref name="Raskin">Raskin, J., The Humane Interface. 2000, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley / ACM Press</ref>
Line 12 ⟶ 13:
==Relationship to other user interface ideas==
There is a great deal of potential synergy between the OOUI concept and other important ideas in user interface design including:
* [[graphical user interface]] (GUI).
* [[direct manipulation interface]]
* [[interface metaphor]]
Line 25 ⟶ 26:
 
==Relationship to ___domain object modelling==
There is also an obvious synergy between the concept of an OOUI and the idea of constructing software from [[business object (computer science)|___domain objects]]. However, it does not follow that the objects that a user sees and interacts with inwithin an OOUI have to correspond to the [[business object (computer science)|___domain objects]] on which the application is built.
 
The [[IBM Common User Access|CUA]] guidelines stated that 'In an object-oriented user interface, the objects that a user works with do not necessarily correspond to the objects, or modules of code, that a programmer used to create the product.'<ref name="cua"/> The basic design methods described in CUA were refined further into the OVID<ref name = "OVID">Dave Roberts, Dick Berry, Scott Isensee & John Mullaly, Designing for the User with OVID: Bridging User Interface Design and Software Engineering MacMillan, 1998</ref> method which used [[Unified Modeling Language|UML]] to model the interface.
 
Mark van Harmelen states that 'Object-oriented user interface design does not require designers to take an object-oriented view of the problem from the beginning of the project. Furthermore, even if designers take an object-oriented perspective throughout, they will benefit from focusing separately on the object model and the object-oriented user interface design.'<ref name="harmelen">van Harmelen, M., ed. Object Modelling and User Interface Design. 2001, Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA.</ref>
 
By contrast, the [[naked objects]] pattern is an approach to the design of applications that, at least in its naive applicationform, enforces a direct correspondence between the objects represented in the OOUI and the underlying ___domain objects, auto-generating the former from the latter.<ref name="pawson">Pawson, R., Naked Objects, Ph.D Thesis, 2004, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland</ref>
 
==References==
<references />
 
[[Category:Object-oriented operating systems| *]]
[[Category:User interfaces]]