David Paules

Ever hear the phrase "the interface IS the system?" It implies that what people perceive a software system to be is largely determined by how the system looks and how they rate their experiences interacting with it. Is the system aesthetically pleasing? Were simple operations simple and were complex commands easy? Was information organized logically? Was the system well behaved and helpful with tips, prompts, and feedback? Users today expect a lot of functionality out of graphical desktop applications and they expect a level of "good practices" compliance as well. The Java platform is a wonderful developer environment, providing many basic necessities that let you build the application of your dreams. Java includes support for a logging framework, a print framework, an undo framework, a menu framework, a preferences framework, and a graphical interface framework. Us... (more)