Unit 2 - Programming, Games, Apps, and Society - Programming and Gaming

Touchscreen User Interface

Displays that accept input by the touch of fingers or a stylus.

Game Concept

During this phase, you decide what type of game you want to create. Start with a new idea or a modification to an existing concept. Consider the audience and the type of motivational strategy for your game.

The Visibility Principle

Good designs don't overwhelm users with alternatives or confuse with unneeded information. Keep the most commonly used options for a task visible and the other options easily accessible to reduce distractions.

GUI

Graphical User Interface

User interface design principles

Guidelines for developing user interfaces.

IDE

Integrated Development Environment

The Simplicity Principle

Make common tasks easy with good shortcuts that are meaningful. Reduce clutter and eliminate any unnecessary or irrelevant elements.

The Structure Principle

Make the user interface in a clear, consistent way so the user understands what to do and performs the same actions in similar situations. Organize related things together, and keep unrelated things seperate

Object Oriented Programming

Object oriented programming (OOP) is an approach to software development that focus on objects and their attributes and behaviors.

The Tolerance Principle

Provide action reversal to keep the user in control. Prevent the user from making serious errors. Suggest a solution to help users recover from any errors. Allow users to abandon or reverse an unwanted action.

The Feedback Principle

Provide appropriate, clear, and timely feedback, such as short messages, so the user sees the results of actions and knows what is going on with the system. Ensure that any instructions are concise and focused on supporting the user's task.

Competition

The player competes to reach a goal or win.

Thrill

The player experiences something exciting that is risky (ski down a mountain, race a fast car).

Social Interaction

The player is interacting with others.

Learning

The player learns new information or how to do something new.

Challenge

The player progresses through different levels to achieve a goal that becomes more difficult as you go along.

Achievement

The player receives a reward or badge for achieving a goal.

Quest

The player searches for something or gains new knowledge or skills.

Syntax

The set of rules that govern the structure of the programming language tand what characters are allowed

Gameplay

The various elements the player interacts with during the game. This include the user interface, visual, audio, objects and characters.

Game Engine

These are used to create and edit games that contain specialized IDEs. They contain a range of tools and elements such as renders, animation, physics components, and scripting that contains the source code and tooling necessary to get a video game up and running fast.

Control Structures

These break up the flow of the program by using decision making, looping, and branching to execute particular blocks of code.

Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

These includes a source code editor for typing or creating your code, a compiler, as well as a debugger.

Elements

These provide a consistent and common way of providing input to perform specific tasks or actions. Examples are drop down lists, buttons, scroll bars, etc.

Menu Driven GUI

These provide a simple and easy to use interface comprised of a series of menus and submenus which the user accesses by pressing buttons, often on a touch screen device. This is commonly used at ATMs and Payment kiosks.

Information Components

These provide information or messages to the user. Examples are dialog boxes, search, and progress bars.

Visual drag and drop programs

These use graphical blocks of code. This allows users to create a program logically without having to learn the textual syntax of the program. Programmers are limited by the built in features of the program.

Professional game programmers

This career requires skills in areas such as simulation, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, physics, and audio programming.

Storyline

This consists of characters, setting and plot. Who, what, when, where, how. The underlying plot defines the flow of the game. It also describes the main objective of the game, problem or challenges involved in the achievement of that objective, and the resources available for the players to help achieve that objective, how to end the game.

Data Structures

This is a particular way of organizing data in a computer so the information can be searched and sorted efficiently.

Game Mechanics

This is how the game operates. It includes the rules, the challenges, the activities a player will perform, the goals of the game and how to win and lose.

Gamification

This is the concept of applying game design techniques to engage and motivate the player.

Usability Testing

This is used to see if the user interface meets certain usability objectives for the program. It asks the following questions: Does it let participants complete specified tasks successfully? How long does it take to complete specified tasks? How satisfied are users with the product? What changes needed to be made to improve user performance and satisfaction?

The Reuse Principle

This principle means using component and behaviors to reduce the need for users to rethink and remember. Allow users to perform the same sequence of actions in similar situations, and the terminology used throughout menus, windows and dialog boxes should be consistent.

Variables

This stores information. Programming languages have a set of rules and conventions for how to create and use variables.

Common Line Interface

Users interact with the program through typing in lines of text. This design is commonly used by advanced computer users or programmers to control a program or operating system.

Form Based Interface

Uses text-boxes, drop-down menus, text areas, check boxes, radio boxes, and buttons to create an electronic form which a user completes in order to enter data into a system. This design is commonly used on websites and applications to gather data from a user.

container

a component that holds other components such as windows, panels, and frames.

user interface

a point of interaction between a computer and humans.

Navigational Components

allow the user to navigate in the programming environment and include such items as Icons, Images, and Menus.

API

application program interfaces

Elements of a GUI

windows, panels, buttons, menus and icons