User Interfaces
A smart home's thermostat, wall panel, phone app and voice assistant show how many user interfaces can control the same software.
Novice · OOP · Updated
Let's dive a little deeper into the noun version of interface by first talking about user interfaces. User interfaces are easy to visualize and to understand.
In this example we will use a smart home as a sample application. Our goal is to control the temperature of our home. One common user interface may include a wall mounted thermostat.
Since this is a smart home application though, we may have a more sophisticated panel which could give us more control over programming temperatures in different rooms, or at different times of the day or year.
Our smart home application may even come with a mobile device application so that we can control the temperature from anywhere, as long as we have internet connectivity.
Many smart homes can even be controlled through voice activated devices.
These are all examples of different User Interfaces that could control the climate of the same home. Each interface allows a user to interact with the software in a different way.
Key terms
- User Interface