Survey on user interface programming

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on the results of a survey of user interface programming. The survey was widely distributed, and we received 74 responses. The results show that in today's applications, an average of 48% of the code is devoted to the user interface portion. The average time spent on the user interface portion is 45% during the design phase, 50% during the implementation phase, and 37% during the maintenance phase. 34% of the systems were implemented using a toolkit, 27% used a UIMS, 14% used an interface builder, and 26% used no tools. This appears to be because the toolkit systems had more sophisticated user interfaces. The projects using UIMSs or interface builders spent the least percent of time and code on the user interface (around 41%) suggesting that these tools are effective. In general, people were happy with the tools they used, especially the graphical interface builders. The most common problems people reported when developing a user interface included getting users' requirements, writing help text, achieving consistency, learning how to use the tools, getting acceptable performance, and communicating among various parts of the program.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: User interface management systems (UIMS)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: User interfaces

  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Interaction styles (e.g., commands, menus, forms, direct manipulation)

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
surveys, user interface software, user interface tools