Web Interfaces

What is web interface?

web interface is the actual part of the browser where you view the web pages on the internet

Definition of Web interface:

(1) Refers to the interaction between a user and software running on a Web server. The user interface is the Web browser and the Web page it has downloaded and rendered. 

(2) A programming connection to the Web.

Is user interface design the same as web interface design?

A UI is anything that would sit between the user and the site/app/OS as a way to interact and control it and get things done via way of clickable buttons, icons and menus etc. This would be the same on the web or anywhere else.

Web Interface Register:

• Manage your project and reduce the risk of potential cost & schedule impact
• Access latest interface information anytime and anywhere
• Quick implementation, Web Interface Register can be set up for your project within a couple of days.

The Web Interface Register is a specialized interface management tool to keep track of, monitor and document interface information exchange between different parties in a project.

Efficient handling of interface information is the key for a successful project execution. The Web Interface Register is a complete interface management tool, which ensures that:

• Responsibilities are assigned
• Issues with potential cost & schedule impact are identified
• Structured process for exchange of information is in place
• Roles are understood by all involved
• Full interface history for experience transfer

Web Interface Register is a web based solution and requires no installation of software hence it enables simultaneous users to access the application from all over the world. This ensures that the particular information and query reach the right people/group at all times during the project’s lifetime.

Patient Web Interface:

MacPractice Patient Interface for Web and Reception area helps users take a big step toward becoming paperless. Patients can request an appointment, register themselves or sign release forms on the Internet before arriving in the office, or in the reception area when they arrive.

• Use interface online or in reception area
• Patient appointment requests
• Complete HIPAA form
• Patient insurance information
• Integrate into your existing website

Cool Web Application Interfaces:

Web application interface has changed the way we use the applications and software online. The first requirement of a successful Web application interface is not just the captivating looks but also a simple and responsive interface that can be easily used by both an professional or a novice.
Today we are showcasing some Web application interfaces to make you accord to our viewpoint. We will be happy to hear what you think about it and if you have used even better interface online.

..   iPLOTZ 

snap pages ..

Greatest Web Interface Design Photoshop Tutorials:

Whether you kick off a web interface design by sketching on papers or blank Photoshop canvas, it’s good to get some guides and inspirations. Here we’ve compiled some of the nicest Photoshop tutorial that guides you, step by step, building up a web interface all the way from scratch.

Ex:

Design Web 2.0 Interface in Photoshop:

Understanding the tutorial below is understanding it’s technique, with it you can draw yourself some graphical user interface for a website. Side navigation, buttons, headers, for instance. All Web 2.0 style.

Web Interface Features:

The two Web Interface site types enable you to provide your users with different methods of accessing their resources, according to their needs.

XenApp Web sites. You can provide users with a Web site to which they can log on using a Web browser. Once authenticated, users can access online resources and offline applications using a Citrix client.

XenApp Services sites. You can use the Citrix online plug-in in conjunction with the Web Interface to integrate resources with users’ desktops. Users access applications, virtual desktops, and online content by clicking icons on their desktop or the Start menu, or by clicking in the notification area of their computer desktop. You can determine what, if any, configuration options your users can access and modify, such as audio, display, and logon settings

disadvantages of web interface:

Excessive creativity can be just that. Excessive! Some designers take it to another level when creating websites by creating different designs for every web page within a website. This is by no means confusing to the user. And utterly annoying. No matter how outstanding and attractive a website is, if the overall look and feel is not consistent, users cannot relate to it and feel less in control. Thus, leaving as soon as they arrived.

Suggestions:

1. Use a standard consistent template for every page with links to the main sections of the site.
2. The keyword is simple. Create aesthetically simple designs and users will never get confused on your website.

Creative Example of Web Interfaces and Web Design

Web Interface and Web Design is very important, because it attract daily visitors to your site. Most of visitors when they see beautiful and creative interfaces or nice design for your site, they put it on their favorites. They should be simple, creative and colorful. Check out these 

 beautifully Web Interfaces and Web Design. Hope you inspire and feed your ideas.

References :

  

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_web_interface

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_user_interface_design_the_same_as_web_interface_design&src=ansTT

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/sketch-web-20-interface-in-photoshop/

http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,1237,t=Web+interface&i=60249,00.asp

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/web-interface-impington/wi-web-interface-features-gransden.html

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/40-greatest-web-interface-design-tutorials-photoshop-tutorial/

http://mhmoodzaidan.deviantart.com/art/World-Creative-154947693

http://kukuraya.deviantart.com/art/flower-store-web-design-157309783

http://sogaso.deviantart.com/art/Tienda-peluches-144733412

http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles/57219/projects/108252/572191216198199.jpg

Shareable Interfaces

Have you ever been frustrated when you work in group on a digital information and when you try to collaborate with others using a single laptop and data projector? 

While everybody is able to see what is displayed on the screen it is too difficult for all of you interact with it. Basically, one person is in control of the computer, using a single mouse and a keyboard, while the others look on the screen. It might be difficult to hand over control between members and would be awkward to ask for that. But still in such groups there is a need to interact to create that kind of digital information.

A new generation of shareable techniques, that are designed specially for more than one person to use at a time, can enable groups to collaborate more effectively to achieve their object. The technologies include gesture-based wall displays, multi-touch tabletops and interactive tangibles.Shared technologies were designed to allow groups comfortably and easily to access, create, interact with and move digital content in an equitable and free-flowing manner.

Can you imagine how comfortable people feel knowing that their actions and their effects on a shared display are highly visible to others in a group setting this may also affect their willingness to participate. Such self-consciousness can deter people from taking part in a group activity.interconnected displays have been embedded in walls, tables and other pieces of furniture that are interacted with, via wireless handheld devices, fingers, pens and gestures.Here are some different kinds of shareable interfaces : 

Gesture-based walls:

The main definition of these interactive wall is a very large, high resolution display which can be sensitive to touch or gesture. The content displayed on these interactive screens is generally the same that could be found on a desktop computer but magnified onto a larger area. 

 We are going to provide you here some interesting examples: 

Gesture-based wall in a Hospital room works a s soon as a doctor comes in,one wall of the room transforms into a projection screen on which patient records can be displayed. Using a hand-gesture based user interface the doctor can access specific files to show the patient the results of surgery. 

If you had watched CSI NY series you would probably know that they have used these interavtive interfaces alot to easily match DNA result, share information and of course interact in one screen.


Multi-touch tabletops:

Small groups find it more comfortable working together around a tabletop compared with sitting in front of a PC or standing in a line in front of a vertical display.The familiar and lightweight action of touching a surface may also make it easier for people to take part in a social/public setting. User studies have shown how groups of people, new to tabletops, find it easy and enjoyable when sharing and assembling of sets of digital images for a variety of collaborative tasks. 

Advantages:

• Useful for group work rather than than single user interfaces.
• Provide equal and flexible form of collaboration.

Disadvantages:

• delicate and prone to breaking. For example, many touchscreen products break down or become scratched from users constantly touching the screens. 

Research and Design issues:

The user interface has two sides: the input side where the user inputs information, indicating by various conventions and controls what he wishes accomplished; and the output side where the machine provides feedback and other assistance to the user in command specification, and provides various forms of information portrayal.

First here are few high-level assumptions about the system usage environment that affect the user interface design and then we discuss some of the lower level issues and the specific techniques used to deal with them:

• Coordinated Set of User Interface Principles.
• Ease of Communication Between Subsets and Addition of Workshop Domains.
• User Programming Capability Or User Interface Extensibility.
• Tools Embedded in a Computer Network.

The user interface must implement a man/machine dialog. Here are some issues from machine to man:

1. Information space.

the user needs information to help him to know where he has been, to know where he is and to know where he can go from here.

2. Subsystem or Tool Space.

In workshops containing many tools and commands, the user needs to know which tool or tools are active, which ones he was in previously and their order, and which ones he can enter from here.

3.Command Syntax Space.

During the specifications of a command, the user may need to know what he can or is expected to do next and how to back up to a previous point.

References:
http://shareitproject.org/
http://rj3sp.blogspot.com/2008/12/philips-health-and-wellness-windows.html
http://diuf.unifr.ch/people/lalanned/Seminar/Seminar0506/interactive_walls__almeidap.pdf
http://mcs.open.ac.uk/pervasive/pdfs/RogersHCI08.pdf
http://www.ehow.co.uk/info_8396116_disadvantages-advantages-interactive-media.html
http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-27171.html

Mobile Interfaces

  

Mobile computing offers the possibility of dramatically expanding the versatility of computers, by bringing them off the desktop and into new and unique contexts. However, this new found versatility poses difficult challenges for user interface ( UI ) designers.


What does mobile Interface mean ?!

It means The user interface, or UI, of a device is the look and feel of the on-screen menu system. How it works, its color scheme, how it responds to button presses, all of these things are part of the user interface. The term is also sometimes used to refer to the piece of software that resides on a smartphone that deals with typical user interface issues. For example, UIQ and Nokia S60 are both user interfaces that run on the Symbian OS on smartphones. They each have a very different look and feel to them.

Another concept:

Universal Mobile Interface (UMI) is a software concept designed to overcome key barriers to mass usage of mobile services. By running server-based services “over the top”, the end user always has access to personal content and data irrespective of operator or device. Operator and device independent services increase the users’ willingness to create personalized web interfaces, store contacts, etc. and to share the UMI software itself along with the services themselves. By having many services interlinked through the same user interface the problem of utilizing data across applications and running parallel programs is overcome. As all Internet links are available through the server, there is no need to type in URLs. The specific link may be represented graphically in the UI and can be clicked on directly. Any link is easily saved and shared.

Portable devices come with different limitations in user interaction like limited display size, small keyboard, and different sorts of input and output capabilities. With the advance of speech recognition and speech synthesis technologies, their complementary use becomes attractive for mobile devices in order to implement real multimodal user interaction. However, current systems and formats do not sufficiently integrate advanced multimodal interactions.

While there has been much successful work in developing rules to guide the design and
implementation of interfaces for desktop machines and their applications, the design of mobile
device interfaces is still relatively unexplored and unproven.

Mobile device interface design is more restrictive than desktop interface design because of relatively limited computing and communication power, smaller platform sizes, an always-changing context , and smaller amounts of user attention.

Advantages:

•      easy of use.


•  Enable Frequent Users to Use Shortcuts:

As the frequency of use increases, so does a user's desires to reduce the number of interactions and to increase the pace of interaction. Because time is often more critical to a mobile device user. Reducing the number of operations needed to perform regular (i.e., repetitive) tasks is a key factor in the ease of use of mobile devices.

Disadvantages:

However, the mobile phone also has important disadvantages compared to the PC:

• Physical limitations, e.g. small screen, limited keyboard
• The large number of different operating systems as well as different versions of enabling software such as Java.
• Limited memory and bandwidth capabilities which reduces the capacity to run applications in parallel and makes it difficult to switch between different applications.

Some important rules for using mobile interface:

 1- The “look and feel” should be the same across multiple platforms and devices:

• Elements of mobile interfaces such as names, color schemes, and dialog appearances should be the same as their desktop counterpart.

• Create input/output methodologies that are device independent - avoid using methods specific to mobile.

2- Reversal of actions:

Mobile applications should rely network connectivity as little as possible.

3- Error prevention and simple error handling:

 Nothing potentially harmful should be triggered by too simple an operation (e.g., power on/off).

4-Reduce short-term memory load:

·   Rely on recognition of function choices instead of memorization of commands.

·   Use modalities such as sound to convey information where appropriate.

5- Design for multiple and dynamic contexts:

·   Allow users to configure output to their needs and preferences (e.g., text size, brightness).

·   Allow for single- or no-handed operation.

·   Have the application adapt itself automatically to the user’s current environment.

6- Design for small devices:
      ·  Provide word selection instead of requiring text input .

7-  Design for limited and split attention: 
     ·   Provide sound and tactile output options.

8- Design for speed and recovery:

·   Allow applications to be stopped, started, and resumed with little or no effort.

·   Application should be up and running quickly.

9- Design for “top-down” interaction:
      ·   Present high levels of information and let users decide whether or not to retrieve details.

10-  Allow for personalization: 

·          ·  Provide users the ability to change settings to their needs or liking.

11- Design for enjoyment:

       . Applications should be visually pleasing and fun as well as usable ·     

Examples For Mobile Interfaces :

Android interface 

 

BlackBerry interface

iphone interface

Conclusion:

Mobile computing represents a staggering opportunity for web designers and developers who want to become productive on mobile. Yes, there is a bit of a learning curve, but much of a web professional’s legacy experience, skills, and tools will translate nicely. Admittedly, the rate of change in the mobile world can be a bit daunting at times – but hey… at least it’s never boring.

References :

http://www.mobiface.com ·                 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Mobile_Interface ·     

http://www.netmagazine.com/features/10-principles-mobile-interface-design -    ·     

 http://www.mobileburn.com/definition.jsp?term=user+interface        ·      

Interface Concept

The layout of an application's graphic or textual controls in conjunction with the way the application responds to user activity.In the field of computer science, an interface is a tool annd concept that refers to a point of interaction between components, and is applicable at the level of both hardware and software. This allows a component, whether a piece of hardware such as agraphics card or a piece of software such as an Internet browser, to function independently while using interfaces to communicate with other components via an input/output system and an associated protocol

In addition to hardware and software interfaces, a computing interface may refer to the means of communication between the computer and the user by means of peripheral devices such as a monitor or a keyboard, an interface with the Internet viaInternet Protocol, and any other point of communication involving a computer

Most computer interfaces are bi-directional, but some, such as to a simple mouse or microphone, are uni

.directional
 :In this Blog we are going to cover three interface types from many aspects  

.Mobile, web and shareable interfaces

:References

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/interfaces

)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_(computing