The effect of user interface design on software development

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to show that the improvement of the user interface of any software application can greatly affect the application’s performance and marketing. This would effectively change its software development process. User interface designers may require skills in many areas, including: graphic design, information design, software engineering, cognitive modeling, technical writing, and a wide variety of data collection and testing techniques. The researcher identified many software applications which have efficient processing capabilities but lack user interface patterns through which users would tap their power. The researcher developed applications using open source tools in Java and compared these applications with Microsoft standard applications in order to show how the improvement of an application based on its interface design can make software user friendly and marketable to users. The researcher identified higher priority user interface elements which should be put into consideration than others and made recommendations to software developers to embed these elements in their development philosophies.