New Perspectives Classic Labs

You have learned that the hardware and software for a user interface determine how you interact and communicate with the computer. In the User Interfaces Lab, you will try five different user interfaces to accomplish the same task-creating a graph.  

1.  Click the Steps button to find out how each interface works. As you work through the Steps, answer all of the Quick Check questions. When you complete the Steps, you will see a Summary Report of your performance on the Quick Checks. Follow the directions on the screen to print the Summary Report.  

2.  In Explore, use each interface to make a 3-D pie graph using data set 1. Title your graphs "Cycle City Sales." Use the percent style to show the percent of each slice of the pie. Print each of the five graphs (one for each interface).  

3.  In Explore, select one of the user interfaces. Write a step-by-step set of instructions for how to produce a line graph using data set 2. This line graph should show lines and symbols, and have the title "Widget Production."

4.  Using the user interface terminology you learned in this Lab and in Chapter 1 of this textbook, write a description of each of the interfaces you used in the Lab. Then, suppose you worked for a software publisher and you were going to create a software package for producing line, bar, column, and pie graphs. Which user interface would you use for the software? Why?