Computer Aided Decision Systems Industrial practices using Big Analytics

Professor Deepu Philip

Department of Industrial and Management Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Professor Amandeep Singh
Imagineering Laboratory
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lecture 08
Principles of Graphical User Interface
Good evening. Welcome to the continued lecture of ‘Graphical User Interface’ Design or
Graphical User Interface Management System that what we were discussing in the previous
class.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:30)

And we had already been looking into the UI structure and the GUI design and what are the
fundamentals about that.
(Refer Slide Time: 00:35)

The dialogue, what is the dialogue and what does the dialogue design involves.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:40)

And we stopped right, where what is the guiding principles of Graphical User Interface?
Here, if you look into this, these principles are based on corporate/business DSS. What we
are going to discuss here mostly focuses on corporate or Business Decision Support Systems.
There are other principles also, but these are the main principles. So, let me give you the six
major principles as part of it. We will go through each one of the principles separately later.

i) User in Control

ii) Consistency
 iii) Personalization and Customization

iv) Forgiveness

v) Feedback

vi) Aesthetics and Usability

So we will go through each one of them.

And, these are on the ‘Order of Importance’. And that is the reason why we call it as an Order
of Importance purely because of the fact that in this case, you are making decisions that are
mostly related to operating a business or running an organization. So, let us discuss all these
principles one by one.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:47)

And the first principle we are going to discuss is the ‘User in Control’. So, the main aspects
of the User in Control is again, we talk about as (with respect to business/corporate DSS. So,
the first one is the word that is typically used here is

1) “Great User Experience”- It is nurturing user’s feeling of control over the ‘User
Interface’ or what we call as (UI) they happen to be using. So, what we are doing? We
are nurturing or we are imparting and growing consistent. So, this is like, reinforcing,
positive reinforcing, the users feeling of control. Whether the user may have actual
control is a different story, but the feeling of control or the perception of control, user
perceive that the user is in control over the UI they happen to be using.
Why need a UI? The answer is to interact with the DSS in natural language. So, you use the
user interface you interact with the decision support system in natural language so that the
system will give you appropriate feedback in making the decision. So, when you are actually
the decision maker and you are happened to using an UI, you need to have a perception of
control that need to be consistently reinforced. And when you feel that the user gets this
consistent feeling that he or she is in control of the user interface, we get what we called as a
‘Great User Experience’. So, one thing you should understand is:

➢ Whether the extent of actual control is less relevant in comparison to the what we
called as ‘Perception of Control’. Whether you are actually controlling it or not is a
different story, but the most important thing is the Perception of Control that is the
more relevant part.

So, under this you can think about it as a few things you can do or you can assume as part of
this. The first logic behind this we call it as:

• No Mothering Principle- User should feel that they initiate actions related to the usage
of DSS in making decisions. And these decisions could be either strategic, tactical,
operational, etcetera.

You already seen the type of decisions, whatever be the decision, the user should feel that
they initiate actions related to the decision or related to the usage of DSS in making decision.
These decisions would be either strategic, tactical, operational etc. You already seen the type
of decisions. Whatever be the decision, the user should feel that they initiate the actions. The
initiation of the actions related to the decision or the related to usage of DSS to make the
decision. User should feel that they are doing it. This No Mothering Principle means, or some
people call this no nanny principle means the action should be done without any prodding or
pushing or encouragement from the decision support system. So, that is the no mothering
principle.

• Feedback is extremely essential to realize such feeling. So, what we are saying here
is, the system should be able to provide proper feedback to the user. You click a
button says Okay, your button is clicked. I understand, now I am going to do this, is
okay with you. So, the feedback that gives back to the user say that Okay, you
initiated the action based on the initiation, now I am doing this and shall I proceed?
So, that gives the user believe that Okay, I initiated the action, the system acknowledge that I
initiated the action, and it is asking for my confirmation. So, that is another way of enforcing
this behavior.

• The Ability to easily get out of trouble will encourage exploitation by the user
(decision maker) which will facilitate learning quick learning and discovery of
features.

So, the ability to easily get out of trouble, it is like even if you make a mistake or if you get
into trouble you can easily get out of it. If that is there, then that will encourage exploitation
by the user (the decision maker). So, once you know that, I am not going to get into trouble
and even if I get into trouble I can quickly get out of it. If that decision maker knows it then
the quick learning and more feature discovery is achieved due to that. So, the User in Control
principle of the GUI design is to promote or to achieve the Great User Experience, which
gives the user a feeling or a reinforcement or a perception, that is the user is in control. User
is the one who is initiating the decision process and the system is there to just support the
decision and facilitate the decision-making process. So, that is the first major principle. Now,
let us talk about the second major principle, which is ‘Consistency’.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:40)

And Consistency is another, it is used again in multiple terms, but we are going to again talk
about it from business DSS viewpoint. Our viewpoint is fixed in this we are looking from the
business DSS viewpoint. So, what does consistency involves? So, the primary consistency is:
 1) Making sure that constituting elements in a UI or (User Interface) are uniform- So,
when you say they are uniform, what do you mean by uniform? They will look and
behave the same way. So a button means clickable button and that is it. Whether it is
in the first page of the UI or the tenth page of the UI, it does not matter, button means
you use the mouse go there click period, you will not be using a button for typing in a
text at some point of time.

So, what does this uniformity entitles to? You can other way of thinking about this:

➢ Consistency limits the number of ways, actions and operations are represented,
thereby ensuring that users do not have to learn new representations for each task.

So, the cognitive load you are trying to reduce that sometimes what people call it Consistency
helps you. So, that means the user does not have to keep on learning new representation for
each task. So, once you learn a button is to be click, that is it button click. If a textbox is
there, and you need to type text in, that is it type text in. You would not look for a clicking in
the textbox.

By seriously limiting the number of ways actions and operations are represented you ensure
that the learning associated with each task is significantly reduced. The second part is:

2) Conformance to the GUI standards

➢ The underlying logic behind this is that a GUI developer must not be too creative and
innovative in the interface design. It says the critical third is must not be too creative
and innovative. So, this is a critical aspect. Should not do it over do it. So, this implies
do not overdo it. So, more than violating the standards and trying in the name of being
innovative do something else try to conform to the GUI standards. Then comes the
third one

3) Conformance to the naming, coding and other GUI related standards. So, this is a
much larger than other GUI related standards- The critical disk conformance to what
that are internally developed by the organization. So, this is internal intrinsic to the
organization. The conformance to GUI standard, this is you can say global, regional,
etcetera or another way to think about is extrinsic, standards that are existing outside
the organization. Whereas, the other one is you should also do naming, coding and
other GUI related standards. It should also conform to the internally developed
 standards of an organization. And, make sure that you do not be in direct conflict with
the external six standards.

➢ So, includes menus, action button, screen fields (or form fields), etcetera. So, mostly
menus, action buttons, screen fields are that you are using and this would also
conform to the internal standards.

➢ It also includes standards for the placement of screen objects and consistent use of
other GUI elements across applications. So, what we are saying here is, you have a
screen or let us say called as a you have a screen real estate, where do I place what,
where do I put the menu? Should I put it on the left-hand side? Or should I put it on
the top like a drop-down? That aspect, where do we put the button the save button is
here, the right-hand corner, left hand corner, so the placement of the screen objects.
And it is consistent and along with the, so if you are using a red color, so for example,
you have a button like this, and say save and it has, let us say it is red in color then in
the, after a few, everywhere you should try to have this button. In another case you
should not create scenario like this (as shown in the slide). Something like this and
you call this a save. People will do not mean the same thing. That is the idea. So, the
Consistency is also very critical, when a user is using the Graphical User Interface,
especially dealing with a Decision Support System, that is supposed to support him or
her in a very extremely undefined decision problem.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:44)

We take into the next one, which we call it as ‘Personalization and Customization’. As I said
earlier, we are looking into this again from the DSS standpoint. And there are, the first aspect
to consider is

1) GUI personalization is customization for personal use. The expectation here is that
you are going to customize it for personal use, then that is what called ‘GUI
personalization’. So, few examples of this, what does it entails. User re-orders
changes the order and re-sizes columns in a grid display and save those changes as
personal preferences. So, what happens here is, it amounts to reordering and, like an
example, let us say here is a screen and you have different menus here. And let us say
you have a place where things are being shown. So, you basically drag and move this
to either side, move this to up and down and you end up moving this resizing up and
down and then you end up saving these preferences. So, let us say this is DP’s
preference or something. So, next time when I come here or when I use this particular
Graphical User Interface, it should set to what I have already saved (as shown in the
slide). So, that is the ‘Personal Usage Customization’, that is the first part. Second
part is:

2) GUI customization is an administrative task. Compared to GUI personalization, GUI

customization is an administrative task of tailoring the software to different group of
users. So, Customization and Personalization is slightly different. The Customization
is typically an administrative task. It is done all across, and the main thing is, it is
trying to change or tailor the software to different group of users. So, one example of
it is ‘Strategic’ versus ‘Operational’ decision makers.

So, this ‘Strategic’ person might be making the decision maybe every other year and this
‘Operational’ person is making decisions daily (as shown in the slide). So, these two will
interact with the system in different fashion. So, the GUI will be customized for the
Operational managers as well as the Strategic managers. Another example of this is ‘The
DSS operates differently for Novice and Advanced users’.

So, what we are saying here is that a Novice is a very new, less proficient user. Whereas an
Advanced user is seasoned. So, the person who is a Novice you may want to give more
menus, buttons, etcetera. Whereas a person who is an Advanced person you may want to give
more keyboard shortcuts. So, that is the difference between Personalization and
Customization of the GUI.
(Refer Slide Time: 26:04)

Now, we go to the next one, what we call it as ‘Forgivenes’. And, Forgiveness is another
important aspect of the GUI. And again, from a DSS standpoint, what do we call it
Forgiveness. So, the major aspect of it is:

• A good GUI always allows users to experiment and make mistakes in a forgiving
way. So, when you call it as a GUI, the biggest thing is it should be forgiving.
Forgiving means it should allow users to experiment and make mistakes. These are
two interconnected aspects, you should experiment and not all indentations will be
successful. So, making the mistakes and whenever the mistake happens, the user
interface should be able to handle it in a forgiving way.

• Forgiveness of the GUI encourages exploration of the UI. So, if you have Forgiveness
of the GUI, then it will encourage exploration of the user interface.

Why? We have two reasons to this:

➢ because the user is allowed to take erroneous routes that can be rolled back. So, you
are allowed to take erroneous routes, you can travel the wrong path. Because you are
guaranteed or you are assured that yes, we can roll back. What is this roll back
means? Roll back is moving back to the previous point (we can go all the way back to
start). We can only roll back one step (previous one), then that is one level of
Forgiveness, we can just roll back all the way to the beginning, then that is a huge
Forgiving system. So, that does not matter you do whatever you want. And, then keep
 on asking for Forgiveness and system will continue to roll back. Then the second
aspect of this is:

➢ Forgiveness implies GUI containing facilities or capabilities such as multi-level undo

operation and the ability to cancel long running applications.

So, this is a critical aspect we will talk about it. So, Forgiveness implies GUI ‘The Graphical
User Interface’ having facilities or capabilities, that allows for multi-level undo operation.
Undo operation means roll back. And the ability to cancel long running applications which
means infinite loops or something or resource hang-ups. Sometimes by going the wrong
route, you give an instruction to the system which is tying up all the sources and it is not able
to come to a solution. So, you should have the capability to stop that execution, free up the
critical resources of the system like memory, hard disk, storage, etcetera, computing power
and then go back to the previous scenario and then start new exploration.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:24)

Now comes the next one, which we call it as the ‘Feedback’. And, Feedback has four major
aspects. So, number one is

1) The Feedback guideline is a spin-off of the first guideline that is the user in control.
So, it is a spin-off, it means it is an augmentation, it is a new route of it. So, what does
to be in control means?
 2) To be “in control” involves knowing what is going on, when the control is temporary
with the DSS program’.

So, it is like, even when you click a button and the system is doing some processing, the user
should not be kept in dark or user should be able to identify what is going on, should say
computing it, should be adding, subtracting, formatting. So, sometimes when you are saving a
large file, so you see something like these progress bars. So, you will see, like SS 21 percent
and at some point it will go up here, and it will say 43 percent stuff like this. So, an example
of this is a progress bar. So, this tells you that this system is doing something, do not disturb
it and this is the current progress. So, the system is telling you, I am doing what you asked me
to do, but I am progressing slightly slowly. And this is my rate of progress. So, that you are
not kept in the dark or the user is not kept in the dark.

3) The GUI developer should build visual and/or audio cues for every user event.

So, an example is when you click a button, doing a circle or a beach ball or something, it tells
you it is a visual cue, whereas when you click a button, creating a chime or a sound a ‘ting’
sound is an audio cue. So, for every user event that provides you a feedback to the user,
which kind of gives you the user the feeling that he or she is in control. Some examples of
this, hour glass, you might have seen this kind of design in and you have something and it
shows that I am busy or beach ball, this is more like a Mac thing a ball there with multiple
color disc rolling around, then there is a wait indicator sometimes etcetera (as shown in the
slide).So, these are all different GUI elements that are used to give both either visual or audio
cues for every user even so that the user feels that he or she is in control with that of the
decision support system, even when the control of the program is given to the DSS to make
decision.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:38)

Then comes the last part of this one, what we call as the 6th one ‘Aesthetics and Usability’.
So, main considerations here are:

• Aesthetics is about visual appeal of the user interface. Whereas,

• Usability is about the ease, simplicity, efficiency, reliability in using the interface.

So, what we are saying is that the Aesthetics is about the visual appeal whereas Usability is
about the ease, simplicity, efficiency, reliability. Reliability means if you click a button this
time this is what it does, next time also same button you click the same it happens so every
time it reliably does the same action. So, that is what the Usability is about. So, what are the
major issues you should consider as part of this? These are some of them. I am not going to
give everyone but these are some of the major everybody uses it.

➢ The fixation and movement of the human eye. You have a screen do you want the
human eye to start from here move in this direction, and from there, do you want to
go this way and then go this way, go this way or do you want to go this kind of
direction (as shown in slide). So how do you fix and the moment of the eyes that is
one part.

➢ Use of colors. What type of colors? Foreground color, background color, font color,
etcetera.

➢ Sense of balance and symmetry. Here we are talking about this what you have in
page. This is one web page and you have a button of this size and in another web
 page, which is a save button and in an another web page you have a button like save
which is much larger than this one that has to be another thing that you need to do (as
shown in slide). Make sure that it all looks exactly the same.

➢ Alignment and spacing of elements. So left aligned, right aligned same type of
alignment to be followed. There should be sufficient whitespace given, so that things
can be separated out and grouped also if required.

➢ Sense of proportion. So things should be proportionate. You should not have a human
figure like this in a large save button. Things should appear in proportion. It is like a
scenario where you are drawing a tree. And so, let us say I draw a tree like this.
Generally, that means it is a very big tree. But then if I draw a human being like this
in the same figure it is normally the ideal thing is something like this, so that the
proportion is maintained. The proportion of the human, this is the proportion of the
tree (as shown in slide).

➢ Grouping of related elements. So if the elements are having the same relationship,
they should be grouped together.

➢ Responsiveness of the system. So, it should not take too much of time for the page to
load, it should happen quickly. It actually creates a bad idea of the usability in that
regard. Then on the top of this, there is another one a major guideline.

• Simplicity- an additional and essential guideline. Some people sometimes also call it
as ‘KISS’ principle (Keep It Simple and Stupid).

So, that is the sixth aspect of the GUI design philosophy. And this brings us to the end of this
topic and what we are going to do from here after is, we will go back to the database system,
database design and see how to, we will go cover the fundamentals of how to design a
database. What are the entity relationship diagram? How do you map a physical entity to a
database element? How do you create tables, query the data that is in a database or extract
information from the database? And then on the top of it, what are the things that you can do
to the database so that your data access in a business or a corporate world when you are
dealing with a large amount of data, how can you speed up the process, etcetera. So, we will
quickly go through those. And once that is completed, we will give a small brief summary of
what is Big Data and then we will move to the other elements of the Decision Support
System. So, thank you very much for your patient hearing. And we will continue in the next
class. Thank you.