Wednesday, October 01, 2003

A few years ago, I read a book entitled Constructing the User Interface with Statecharts by Ian Horrocks. Using those ideas, I occasionally use state charts as disposable artifacts on large projects to nail down a confusing user interface problem. Each screen becomes a state and the user actions are the events. The diagrams end up looking like the diagram of a regular expression state chart, which is appropriate, because the user actions form a language. You can glance at a state chart and visually identify confusing aspects of the user language, which will translate into user confusion. On a large project, it makes no sense to try to document the entire system with state charts. However, on a small, haiku-like, J2ME application (note to self: don’t ever say haiku-like again), the entire state chart can be drawn on one page with room to spare. State charts are very good at precisely specifying an application because of their formality. 3:23:19 PM

© Copyright 2003 Larry Sherrill. Last update: 10/1/2003; 3:23:23 PM.