How to create a graphical user interface mock-up for research?

Question

I am a student and interested in doing some research on user interface. For some experiments, I have to change the behaviors of many default interactions in an operating system such as double-click or drag-and-drop in Windows (to make it faster, more efficient, etc.)

The best way is to change the behaviors of these interactions in an operating system itself (It can be Windows, Mac or any flavors of Unix) because then I can set up a real environment for a long-term user study. But, unless I hack the operating system's kernel, I think there's no way to do this natively.

Now I use Java and its captured events such as mouse_pressed, mouse_released, or mouse_clicked to implement a mock-up operating system. However implementing the whole thing up (even for just one scenario like dragging files through file windows) is labor-intensive and time-consuming. There should be a better way to do this. I am thinking about doing this in Flash, but I have never used it before. Has anyone done the same thing or got any ideas?

Answer 1

See UI-First Software Development.

Answer 2

I can't claim any experience in this specifically, but I would suggest the Flash is likely to be an appropriate base for a prototype. What I imagine you want is something very simple which can provide a graphical display without an extensive model behind it, and is very strong in interface creation.

You might equally look at Silverlight and Java FX, though I think you will find quite a lot more documentation and support in the Flash space.

Answer 3

Gliffy its awesome! :)

Answer 4

Clutter is an open-source toolkit for generating customized 2D / 3D user interfaces. It might be flexible enough for what you want to do.