User interface (UI) controls are the building blocks of any software interface. Using them wisely can lead users to use your product the way you intended, making it familiar and easy for them to learn, even if they’ve never used it before.
As a user interface designer, familiarity with interface controls is essential to designing a good user experience. For example, many new designers get bogged down in deciding whether to use checkboxes or radio buttons on forms, or whether there are too many on-screen navigation labels. That’s what this chapter is about.
Fortunately, after years (often decades) of research and practice, best practices and guidelines for user interface control have been established. In the next few articles, we’ll introduce the most common types of user interface controls, describe when and how to use them, and show examples and variations to make you feel comfortable selecting and using them in your own designs.
UI controls are like ingredients in a recipe. Learn about their unique tastes and characteristics and you can improvise, substitute and customize to suit your needs (or your specific user). Knowing them well enough, you can create your own recipes from scratch (design patterns).
Below is a list of UI controls we will be studying. Roughly speaking, they fall into the following categories: controls that accept input, such as those found in forms; Navigation controls that allow users to move around an application or site; And output controls that deliver information to the user.
- 2.1 the button Buttons
- 2.2 Text Input Text Input
- 2.3 Dropdown Menu Dropdown Menu
- 2.4 Radio Buttons and Checkboxes Radio Buttons and Checkboxes
- 2.5 Links to the Links
- 2.6 选项卡 Tabs
- 2.7 Navigation Breadcrumbs
- 2.8 Sidebar Vertical Navigation
- 2.9 Menu Bars
- 2.10 Accordions
- 2.11 verify the Validation
- 2.12 Tooltips Tooltips
- 2.13 warning Alerts
- Data Tables
- 2.15 the icon the Icons
Next: UI control Buttons