Chapter 16. User Interface Architectures

When you set out to design the user interface for your system, the first decision you must make is how to structure the overall system interfacethe user interface architecture. In this chapter, we'll discuss several more-or-less standard architectures that are described in The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design and implemented in popular software.

You can invent your own user interface architecture, but as always when you're wandering away from existing standards, you should have a good reason for doing so. Remember that consistency, not just within applications but also between them, makes life easier for users.