This Assignment 4, planned early on, is being absorbed into the new Design component of the course. Look there for further information.
This assignment will give you a chance to experiment with some quite simple code for a graphical user interface. What you will do is to choose one of the many Java Swing demos referred to in the course page Application Programming. You will get it running on whatever machine you choose - all of them should run on Linux, Mac, or Windows without problems. Then you should make simple changes to the code, varying the titles, text, images, layout, etc. There is no need to make major changes to the architecture of the application, but you're more than welcome to. Run your new code and get a screenshot of the original and the altered application. Email me your code, screenshots, and a one or two page single-spaced document describing your experience and what you changed, all zipped into a single file.
The goal is simply to give you a chance to see inside some GUI code, the kind that runs in applications and applets. Too often you're one or two stages removed from such code, so it is good to have some acquaintance with it.
As with all your assignments, in your writeup you should relate the application and your work on it to the HCI concepts and principles that form the core of the textbook and this course. Be sure to use the correct technical terms and concepts in your discussions.
Return to the Design page or the ISU570 Spring 2009 homepage. or RPF's Teaching Gateway or homepage