User Interface Analysis & Design Models

User Interface Analysis & Design Models

• Four different models come into play when a user interface is to be analyzed and designed. 
• User model : 
• Established by a human engineer (or the software engineer) 
• A profile of all end users of the system. 
• Users can be categorized as 
• Novices. No syntactic knowledge of the system and little semantic knowledge of the application or computer usage in general. 
• Knowledgeable, intermittent users. Reasonable semantic knowledge of the application. 
• Knowledgeable, frequent users. Good semantic and syntactic knowledge 
• Design model :
• Created by the software engineer. 
• A design realization of the user model 
• To build an effective user interface, “all design should begin with an understanding of the intended users, including profiles of their age, gender, physical abilities, education, cultural or ethnic background, motivation, goals and personality.
• User’s mental model : 
• The end user develops a mental image that is often called the User’s mental model or the system perception, 
• The user’s mental image of what the interface is 
• Implementation model : 
• Created by the implementer of the system.