CSC 308 GUI Conventions

CSC 308 GUI Conventions

These conventions describe the standard layout and presentation style for the graphical user interfaces in CSC 308 requirements documents. The point of these conventions is two-fold:

to provide very simple and straightforward drawing conventions, that can be met using almost any basic drawing editor;
to provide conventions that are platform-independent in their look and feel.

The overall screen layout for a CSC 308 tool is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Elements of the standard 308 tool GUI.

The contents of all tool-specific windows must follow the general style guidelines shown in the figure. Specifically:

window backgrounds are white, unless a another color choice is warranted
text font is black 12-point courier, unless another font choice is warranted
coloring of other UI elements is used where warranted
GUI widgets used in tool-specific windows are generally simple in style (see further guidelines below)

The meaning of "warranted" with regards to font and color choice means that the use of different fonts and colors must be based on specific improvements to functionality, not solely on aesthetics.

The standard command menu layout for all tools is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Standard tool menus.

The contents shown for the File and Edit menus are expected to be standard for all tools, unless tool-specific functionality warrants some change. Normally, new functionality is added to the File and/or Edit menu by adding new items to the bottom of the menu, separated by a horizontal rule from the existing items.

Standard GUI control elements are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Formating Details for GUI Elements.

If a tool needs to use addition GUI elements, they must be rendered in a style consistent with the standard elements.

If your team deviates from these conventions, the conventions that you use must be clearly specified in the "Document Conventions" section of the requirements specification document. In all cases, the GUI conventions must meet the following standards:

They must be consistent throughout the requirements; that is, all members of a team must use precisely the same drawing standards.
They must have a reasonably platform-independent look and feel.
They must follow the preceding guidelines for fonts, color, and general simplicity of style.
They must provide for any and all forms of interface that are appropriate to your project; in particular, you cannot limit the forms of user interaction to those that happen to be available in a particular GUI-building tool. If you use a GUI builder of some form, and it is missing UI features that are important in your 308 project, then you must draw those missing features by hand using some form of basic drawing editor.