Using TRIZ to Design Error-Free GUI

13 Pages Posted: 25 Feb 2020

See all articles by Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Independent Researcher on TRIZ and IT

Date Written: October 12, 2008

Abstract

A graphical user interface has a lot of advantages over its predecessors. Its beauty, simplicity, adaptability, user-friendliness, visual clarity, speed and ease of operation have made it popular and suitable to a broad range of users.

But a GUI also has certain limitations. Like any other type of user interface, a GUI can also be operated wrongly which may yield undesirable results. A good GUI should be intelligent to determine user's intention and disallow him doing wrong operations. A less error-prone GUI is certainly more effective and efficient.

Ideally the GUI should prevent users from doing any mistake while operating the GUI. A better GUI would intelligently detect and automatically correct all wrong operations done by the user (Ideal Final Result).

The article analyzes the features of an ideal GUI, finds out the contradictions in achieving the ideal features and illustrates alternative methods of solving the contradictions. Seven patents are analyzed from US patent database illustrating how each of them tries to reduce operational errors in a GUI.

Suggested Citation

Mishra, Umakant, Using TRIZ to Design Error-Free GUI (October 12, 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1283142 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1283142

Umakant Mishra (Contact Author)

Independent Researcher on TRIZ and IT ( email )