• 1. Graphical User Interface
  • 1.1. UI versus GUI
  • 1.2. GUI Design
  • 1.3. Layout
  • 1.4. GUI for Interactive Maps
  • 1.5. Self Assessment
  • 1.6. Summary
  • 1.7. Glossary
  • 1.8. Bibliography
  • 1.9. Metadata

1.7. Glossary

Command-Line Interface (CLI):

The user provides the input by typing a command string with the computer keyboard and the system provides output by printing text on the computer monitor (Wikipedia).

Complementary Colours:

Colours that are opposite one another in the colour wheel are called complementary. For example, green is complementary to red.

Desktop Metaphor:

"The desktop metaphor is a set of unifying concepts currently used in a number of graphical user interfaces in computer operating systems. The monitor of a computer represents the user's desktop upon which documents and folders of documents can be placed. A document can be opened into a window, which represents a paper copy of the document placed on the desktop. " (Wikipedia)

Graphical User Interface (GUI):

"Graphical User Interface is the use of pictures rather than just words to represent the input and output of a program. A program with a GUI runs under some windowing system (e.g. The X Window System, Microsoft Windows, Acorn RISC OS, NEXTSTEP). The program displays certain icons, buttons, dialogue boxes etc. in its windows on the screen and the user controls it mainly by moving a pointer on the screen (typically controlled by a mouse) and selecting certain objects by pressing buttons on the mouse while the pointer is pointing at them. " (Linuxjunkies)

Metaphor:

A metaphor is a figure of speech that implies comparison between two unlike entities, as distinguished from simile, an explicit comparison signalled by the words "like" or "as". The metaphor makes a qualitative leap from a reasonable, perhaps prosaic comparison, to an identification or fusion of two objects, to make one new entity partaking of the characteristics of both. (Encyclopedia Britannica)

User Centered-Design (UCD):

"User Centered-Design (UCD) is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of the end user of an interface or document are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. User-centered design can be characterized as a multi-stage problem solving process that not only requires designers to analyze and foresee how users are likely to use an interface, but to test the validity of their assumptions with regards to user behaviour in real world tests with actual users. Such testing is necessary as it is often very difficult for the designers of an interface to understand intuitively what a first-time user of their design experiences, and what each user's learning curve may look like." (Wikipedia)

User Interface (UI):

In computer science and human-computer interaction, the user interface (of a computer program) refers to the graphical, textual and auditory information the program presents to the user, and the control sequences (such as keystrokes with the computer keyboard, movements of the computer mouse, and selections with the touchscreen) the user employs to control the program. (Wikipedia)

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