Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
User Interface
The user interface is the veneer that hides the intricacies of the computer hardware and software and
presents users with images, sounds, and graphics that they can interact with on a cognitive level.
Properly constructed, the user interface focuses the computer user's attention on what's being
presented—a protein structure, for example—not on the image-rendering software or the display
hardware. Every computer application and every workstation has a user interface defined by
hardware and software. Whether the workstation is running a computer operating system such as
Microsoft Windows, a Web browser extension designed to draw 3D protein structures, such as
WebMol, or a Web-based nucleotide sequence viewer, such as Map Viewer, it's the user interface that
defines the usability and usefulness of the underlying application and accessibility of the associated
data.
The user interface determines the density of information that can be presented to the user, as
defined by Information Theory, for which the user interface is the medium through which the data
flow. As shown in
Figure 5-15
, the application—a 3D protein visualization tool, for example—is the
information source, and the data created by the application is the message. The computer interface
hardware, including the video card and monitor, is the transmitter. The user interface, including the
buttons and other graphics rendered on the computer monitor, serves as the medium. In this model,
the irrelevant data includes components of the system that interfere with the message generated by
the application, such as superfluous graphics, distracting colors, and other irrelevant data that appear
on the computer monitor, which only serves to confuse the user.
Figure 5-15. The User Interface and Information Theory.
One purpose of the user interface is to simplify and focus the user's attention—superfluous data
detracts from this purpose. The receiver in the Information Theory model is the user's perceptual
apparatus, including eyes for visual content, ears for audio content, and proprioceptors for tactile or
haptic content. Finally, the message, now containing relevant and irrelevant data, reaches the
ultimate destination—the user's awareness.
The user interface is the medium and therefore a major bandwidth-limiting element in the delivery of
data from the application to the user; everything that affects the effectiveness of the user interface
affects delivery of data. Regardless of the complexity and technical marvel of the underlying
molecular biology database and any related visualization tools, users see and interact with the user
interface. This interaction with the user interface defines the utility of the 3D molecular models and
other data displayed on the screen. Designing an interface to support bioinformatics, or any niche
