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Computing Science (User interface design (Consistency (Consistency is…

- - - - Font style and size
      - Graphics style and size. e.g imagery
      - Mouse action or command to produce the same action
      - Navigation bar in a consistent location on each webpage
      - Sounds as alerts. For example an error message being displayed with a warning sound
      - Alignment of text in a consistent and appropriate way
      - Terms
  - - - Making hyperlinks obvious and defined in purpose
      - Having a layout that will suit the websites purpose
      - Information displaying the current webpage in relation to a page tab
  - - - Colour balance. Colour present but not distracting
      - Use of headings and sub-headings
      - Text size / font. optimised to suite the reader
  - - - Interactive animations such as opening a condensed section of text
      - Video clips
      - Clear links with meaningful text acting as the link
      - Sound files. For example a tune that plays when the user clicks on a button
      - Hotspot areas to trigger actions
      - Polls or quizzes that the user can partake in
      - Feedback to assist the user in completing out a process or alerting the user to errors
  - - - Filing in a fourm
      - Clicking on a radio button or hotspot
      - Using a menu
  - - - Keep the screen organised and un-clutered
      - Avoid using large amounts of effects
      - Use of complimentary and common colours
- - - - It is represented in a series of numbers
      - These numbers can be either decimal identifiers or binary
      - ASCII stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange"
      - The first 32 ASCII codes are called Control Characters
        
        These are characters you can press that do something but do not display anything on the screen when pressed
        
        Some examples include the keys delete, escape, tab, etc
      - ASCII is used to represent text in a computer's memory
    - - Advantages
        
        If more than 128 characters are required , it can be extended to, an 8-bit code which means it can represent 256 characters.
        
        This
        is called extended ASCII
        
        computers dont make mistakes with the code, unlike humans
      - Disadvantages
        
        it is a 7- bit code which means that is can represent a limated number of characters
        
        it is slightly comfusing and mistakes can be made.
- - - - This includes music or any
        other noise produced by a
        computer. Sound is referred to
        as audio data.
      - Sound can come in thesestandard file formats
        
        WAV
        This is the standard for storing sound files on a Windows system and can be
        sampled at a bit-depth of 8 or 16 bits. .wav files can take up a large amount of
        storage space.
        
        MP3
        MP3 is a format for compressing sounds which does not seriously degrade the
        quality of the sound because it filters out parts of the original sound that the
        human ear cannot detect. The higher the bit-rate the better quality the sound is
        but the larger the file size.
      - Sample depth: Is the amount of bits in a sample. The more the bits the higher the more detailed the sound wave will be and the fdiel size gets higher.
      - Sampling Frequency: How often a sound is sampled every second measured in Hertz(Hz) or Kiloherts(KHz)
    - - Graphics refer to any diagrams
        and pictures.
      - Graphics can come in these standard file formats
        
        BMP
        This format stores colour data for each pixel in the image without any compression.
        This means files can be very large.
        
        GIF
        This is a compressed file format which means it has a smaller file size than BMP. It
        uses an 8-bit colour code so has a maximum of 256 colours. This means it is
        unsuitable for storing photographic images. Instead it is used for charts, cartoons
        and drawings.
        
        JPEG
        This is a compressed BMP file format. It is often used for storing digital
        photographs. It is not used for cartoons or drawings as during compression a lot of
        noticeable data would be lost.
    - - Any character which appears on a computer
        keyboard. If you store a number as text it may
        not be used in calculations.
      - Text can come in these standard file formats
        
        Text (.txt)
        A .txt file has no formatting information such as text style, alignment, etc. This
        means that it has a small file size so is quicker to send across a network.
        It will be recognised by any text editing or word processing program and can be
        used by most other software programs.
        
        Rich Text Format (RTF)
        A RTF file stores all the formatting as well as the actual text. It includes all
        information about styles, font sizes, paragraphing and indentation.
    - - Movies or videos are a type of data
        produced by a digital video camera,
        some digital still cameras and
        smartphones. Video is made up of a
        sequence of moving or ‘live’ action
        images.
      - Video can come in these standard file formats
        
        AVI
        This was developed by Windows and is commonly used by Windows applications
        like Media Player. It does not have built-in compression. The main problem with
        this file format is the limit on the size of the video file being restricted to 2 Gb. It is
        being replaced by Windows Media Video (WMV) format as this supports
        compression.
        
        MPEG
        MPEG is one of the most common formats for video. MPEG-2 is the standard for
        DVDs and can compress a 2 hour video into just a few Gigabytes.
        
        MPEG-4
        This is a compression method designed for low-bandwidth video and audio
        encoding which means high quality audio and video can be transferred over the
        internet to desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
- - - - Increased use of frameworks
        This provides programmers with a pre-generated set of code that will allow them to bypass the creation of many aspects of development, especially in relation to the visual layout. Bootstrap is an example of this.
        
        App Development
        Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have increased the demand for apps. This has resulted in the demand for a ‘Software Development Kit’ (SDK). Languages such as LiveCode include SKDs within the environment that allow programmers to create an app and then compile it for use on a range of mobile platforms. This reduces development time.
  - - - De-bugging tools
        
        These often include log files to assist the user in recognising errors and correcting errors
      - Collaboration tools and the cloud
        
        These include the incorporation of the cloud to allow multiple programmers to work on a code and provide quick access to working pre created codes to speed up the work on a program
      - Graphical user interface creation
        
        These allow the user to design the user interface on a basic level by moving the positioning of text boxes, buttons and various other basic implementations
      - Emulators
        
        These allow users to emulate their program running on a different type of devise such as a program for a mobile device being designed on a desktop computer
      - Text editors
        
        Text editors are becoming increasingly user friendly with features such as key words activating indentation and altered colouring for text such as variables or complex conditions
      - Mini development environments via browser software
        
        These are sites that are there to assist novice programmers with basic training and information on programing while also providing a in browser programing language for very basic programing
- - - - Advantages
        
        Machine code does not require to be translated to suit the computer.
        
        It runs very quickly.
      - Disadvantages
        
        Because it is written in binary, machine code can be incredibly hard to be read by a human operator
        
        Machine code is processor specific and can only be used on a computer with the same processor as the one it was written on.
  - - - It can be read on any processor, regardless of what it was made on.
        
        It makes it easier for people to read and edit it. It is also easier to spot mistakes.
        
        However, in order to run, it is required that it is turned into machine code, which in turn requires a translator.
        
        Translators are a seperate piece of software that converts a high level language. There are two kinds of translators: Interpreter and Compiler (as described above).
- - - - Instead, it translates the code line by line as it is being run
        
        Advantages
        
        Any Errors are immediately highlighted and are easier to fix
        
        Interpreters are capable of running partially complete pieces of code
        
        Disadvantages
        
        If code is repeated in a loop, the translator retranslates the code with each loop.
        
        The intepreter must be present whenever the code is run. It cannot be used once then removed.
        
        Individual runs are slower than those run by a compiler, for the reasons above.
  - - - It does this by going through the code one line at a time translating it then putting the translation into a file. It then moves onto the next line.
      - If the program is changed due to an improvement or fixing an error, the code will require to be translated again.
      - Advantages/Disadvantages
        
        Advantages
        
        If there are no errors then the code can remain translated and will not require to be translated again
        
        Once the program is translated the translator program is no longer required.
        
        Disadvantages
        
        If there are any errors, the program will not run.
        
        The errors can be harder to detect as the program requires to be translated for the errors to be identified.