CBSE Book Class 11 Informatics Practices Programming Guidelines

Programming Guidelines

GUI Application Development Guidelines

Some good application development guidelines are:

1. Understand the need of the application before starting the development.

2. Find out all possible inputs, which are required to produce the desired result or results.

3. Make sure that the user provides appropriate information with minimum efforts to avoid ambiguity in data. The same can be done by appropriately deciding on the various input components - maximize use of radio button, checkbox, combo box, and list. Wherever possible avoid use of text field and text area for accepting inputs from the user to reduce ambiguity.

4. Radio Button should be used wherever one of the option out of limited number of known set of options are required to be taken from the user. For example, for accepting gender (Male or Female), marital status (Single or Married), for accepting membership type (Monthly, Annual or Lifetime) etc.

5. Checkbox should be used wherever multiple options are required to be selected from a limited number of known set of options. For example, for accepting multiple hobbies (Swimming, Singing, Dancing, Debating), for accepting food order in a restaurant (Pizza, Burger, Channa Kulcha, Pao Bhaji, Chowmein) etc.

6. Combo box should be used wherever only one of the option from a large number of known set of options is required to be taken from the user. For example, selecting state, selecting marital status, selecting schools etc.

7. List should be used wherever multiple options are required to be selected from a large number of known set of options. For example, selecting multiple food items from a menu containing five or more number of items.

8. It is advisable to use List and Combo box when there are too many options as they help save space and are less cumbersome to design as compared to radio button and checkbox.

9. Options in a list or a combo box may be displayed in alphabetical order so that  it is easier for the user to locate the appropriate option or may be displayedaccording to the probability of choice. For example, to take input of name of a state the names should be displayed according to alphabetical order, to take input of employee designation the highest level should be put at last and the lowest level should be put at top. The explanation for this is since there are more employees at lower levels as compared to higher levels, the probability of choosing the lower level is more. In short the most probable answer should be at the top.

10. It is advisable to use appropriate labels for each input and output options to help the user to correctly interpret them.

11. While writing the code do not use variable names as A, B, C etc. Instead use meaningful names and follow naming conventions. All the variables and constants must be named according to the naming conventions. They make the code easier to read, understand and maintain. For example a variable storing total marks should be named as Total. Similarly a variable holding cost price may be named as CP.

12. Ensure Clarity of expressions. All the expressions should be easy to understand for the user. There should not be a compromise to reduce the statements by loosing their clarity.

13. The conditional construct if..else should be preferred when there are very few alternative execution paths to choose from and also when decisions are to be made based on ranges of values or conditions. For example, to show gender based title etc.

Please refer to the link below - CBSE Class 11 Informatics Practices Programming Guidelines