GUI Design Workshop
Designing Effective User Interfaces

by James Hobart

Washington, DC, September 22-23, 1997

What's Happening

The world has gone GUI. The most important component of a GUI application is the interface. If the application is too difficult to navigate or understand, the users will reject it, support and training costs will skyrocket, programmers will get discouraged and maintenance will be a nightmare. GUI applications must be designed to effectively meet today’s demanding business needs.

This seminar covers the fundamental and key principles of successful GUI design. You will adopt the new GUI paradigm which includes: the event-driven mid-set, the user-centric design, proper use and placement of GUI controls, and GUI architectural modeling.

Attendees will study examples of GUIs that differ based on the nature and type of application being designed. Hear how GUI design standards truly accelerate the development of consistent GUIs. Learn from an expert who has trained Fortune 1000 programmers/analysts throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. This GUI Design Workshop is the culmination of over 6 years experience in developing GUIs for business applications.

What Makes This Seminar Unique

The topics in this seminar are strongly reinforced by interactive labs. At the conclusion of this class, attendees are ready to immediately begin successful GUI design. In addition, by critiquing real-world examples of successful and unsuccessful GUIs, and analyzing actual case studies, attendees will learn the difference between effective and ineffective GUI design.

Benefits of This Seminar

At the end of this course attendees will have a solid understanding how to:

· Create successful user interfaces from User Requirements
· Use new modeling techniques for architecting complex interfaces
· Create and implement in-house GUI standards
· Conduct effective Usability Tests and inspections
· Use each of the GUI controls…and know when not to
· Use effective icon design techniques and when not to
· Differentiate the different types of prototypes and when to use each
· Design usable icons

What You Will Learn

A two day class for both developers and end-users, the Effective GUI Design course explains how to apply the concepts of the graphical design paradigm quickly and efficiently. Attendees will learn how to determine the GUI navigation and presentation, convert character-based interfaces to GUIs, created GUIs from user requirements, prototype, test usability, and create in-house GUI design standards.

Who Should Attend

• Corporate or commercial programmers and analysts who are, or plan to be, involved in GUI projects.

• Project Managers who need to know what it takes to create an effective GUI.

• Systems Architects who need to know how to set up a plan for object re-use or integration of multiple GUIs across the organization.

• End-users concerned with developing well-designed GUIs or gathering user requirements.

Seminar Outline 

1. Overview: Topic Objectives

a. Course background
b. Course objectives
c. Course agenda

2. GUI Primer

a. Learn what a GUI is and what it is NOT
b. Benefits of a good GUI design
c. Discuss GUI challenges and how to overcome them
d. Common reasons for GUI failure
Lab: Let’s fix some ‘challenged’ GUIs
Lab: Let’s review some ‘successful’ GUIs

3. Developing the Conceptual Model

a. Explore concepts of user analysis
b. Identify the types and characteristics of different user types
c. Learn how user analysis affects GUI design
d. Identify types of tasks and how they affect design
Lab: Develop a task/user profile

4. Window and Menu Design

a. Review the GUI controls
b. Learn the appropriate usage and behavior of the basic controls
c. Techniques for effective menu design and usage
Lab: Design a menu for a call center application
Lab: Design a window for a call center application

5. GUI Design Process

a. Learn the GUI design process
b. Techniques used to implement effective GUIs
c. Provide introduction to prototyping and usability testing techniques
d. Learn new GUI modeling techniques
Lab: Create a presentation model for a sample application
Lab: Create a navigational model for a sample application
Lab: Create a sample GUI windows to support the new models

6. Principles of User-Centric Design

a. How people think, learn, and work
b. Identify principles of user-centric design
c. Apply concepts to interface design
d. Identify on-line help design basics
Lab: Apply design principles to correct user interfaces

7. Window Design

a. Define window components
b. Learn window navigation techniques
c. Understand how to use the 4 main types of windows
d. Identify the common window attributes
e. Differentiate modal vs. Modeless windows and their usage
f. Discuss various presentation models and when to use each type
g. Learn when to use tab and multi-form window display techniques
Lab: Apply the knowledge learned about good GUI designs by critiquing
and redesigning GUI designs

8. Converting Character-Based Systems To GUIs

a. Explain the process involved in converting CUI to GUI
b. Present guidelines / rules to follow
c. Discuss different strategies for CUI to GUI migration
Lab: Convert character based screens to GUI windows

9. Creating On-Line Help

a. Learn the various types of help
b. Explain the components of an on-line help system
c. Identify basic principles of help system design

10. Prototyping

a. Define what is a prototype
b. List benefits and costs of prototyping
c. List purpose/goals of prototyping
d. Define different types of prototypes and when to use each type
e. Describe success factors in prototyping efforts
f. Discuss how to implement and maintain standards

11. Usability Issues

a. Define usability testing
b. Discuss when usability testing should be conducted
c. Explore the usability testing process

12. Developing Effective Standards

a. Explain why standards are important
b. Identify process of defining and implementing standards
c. Learn contents of standards

13. Course Conclusion

a. Course summary
b. Questions and answers

About Your Instructor

Jim Hobart is an internationally recognized user interface design consultant and president of Classic System Solutions, Inc. He specialize in the design and development of large-scale, high-volume client/server applications. He is an expert in GUI design for transaction processing systems and strategies for migration form character-based systems to GUI and Web-based technologies. Mr. Hobart has thirteen years of software development experience and over seven years of GUI application design experience. Additionally, he has successfully utilized RAD methodologies with clients and has assisted with their adoption of Object Oriented design techniques.

Meeting Site and Hotel Information

Washington, September 22-23, 1997
Georgetown Conference Center
(202) 687-3200

Register Now!

GUI Design Workshop
Designing Effective User Interfaces

$995

Attend this seminar and the Advanced GUI Design Workshop--Applying New Technologies to the Interface and SAVE $395!

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