GUI programming design considerations

Although the focus of this chapter is on developing simple GUI applications, it is worth taking a moment to briefly discuss some important practical design considerations or guidelines for developing user interfaces. These guidelines will also come in handy for web-based or mobile applications. Some aspects that we are about to discuss should actually be part of your GUI application development life cycle.

Understanding user requirements

The first and foremost task is to put yourself in the shoes of the end user. You are developing the GUI application for consumption by the end users. It is important to take their feedback on the features that they would like to see. This is typically a part of requirements gathering.

Developing a user story

OK, so you know what features are requested, and have prepared a list that would be supported in the upcoming version. It is often useful to prepare a mock user interface that illustrates how various features could be...