Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines - Advanced Topics

An application\'s usability depends on its appearance and behavior--its look and feel. A consistent look and feel helps users learn an application faster and use it more efficiently. In addition, a consistent look and feel helps users learn other applications that share that look and feel.

This book provides guidelines for designing applications with the Java look and feel. All the guidelines are intended to help you create a well-designed application.

Well-designed applications have the following characteristics:

• Logical organization
• Scalability
• Predictability
• Responsiveness
• Efficiency

The rest of this chapter describes each of these characteristics, why each is important, and which parts of this book relate to each characteristic.

Logical Organization

Applications that use the Java look and feel consist of user interface components displayed in windows. The way that you organize your application into windows and components should be consistent with the logical divisions that users perceive in their tasks. For example, a logically organized email application might include:

• A window for reading received messages, each of which is an object
• A window for composing messages, with components such as text fields for addressees, a text area for the message, and a button for sending the message

Logical organization is especially important in applications that display many objects in several windows. For example, an application for managing a large network might display:

• Windows displaying sets of network domains
• Views (such as icons or table entries) of each domain\'s nodes
• Views of each node\'s properties (for example, its network address)

Chapter 2 discusses how to choose the correct types of windows for different types of user interaction. Within a window, usability often depends on whether menus are organized logically. Chapter 3 describes how to design menus.

Scalability

Applications sometimes need to display widely varying numbers of user interface objects. For example, in an application that monitors the computers of a growing corporation, the number of objects representing computers at a particular site might increase rapidly. When looking for a particular object in a window representing that site, a user might need to view 15 objects in one month or 1500 the next. The user interface of such an application should be scalable. In other words, it should enable users to find, view, and manipulate widely varying numbers of objects.

This book discusses several ways to make your application\'s user interface more scalable. For example, Chapter 4 describes filtering and searching--features that enhance an application\'s ability to manipulate large sets of objects.

Predictability

To learn new parts of an application, users often rely on their experience with the application\'s other parts. Slight inconsistencies between the look and feel of different parts can frustrate users and reduce their productivity. Chapter 5 describes ways to group JFC components into reusable units that promote predictability in your application.