COSC 341: Human Computer Interaction

A2: An Adaptive GUI [24 pts]

Due date: Oct 08, 2017, 9:00am

What to submit:

A zip folder with:

Your source code
An executable of your program that works on a school computer
Note: if it requires any additional file such as images, then make sure everything is placed within the same folder and your work does not require any installation on our part
A plain text file (.txt) of the data generated by your program
A plain text file (.txt) indicating any known bugs or incomplete functions in your program

Any help you got and any code you are using from downloaded sources must be cited within your code. Online sources must have accompanying URLs.

Overview

This is a programming assignment where you will extend on the program you built from A1. Note that you should incorporate your TA's feedback and make any changes necessary before starting this assignment, since problems in A1 might hinder you from getting a good mark here. If you absolutely do not want to continue with your own code from A1, you may use the sample solution provided here and complete your A2 using it.

Note: You may choose to code in any programming language you want, so long as the executable can run without errors on the school computers in the lab where you will be required to run it for data collection purposes. It is your responsibility to test this in the labs well in advance of each milestone due date.

Specific Requirements

Continue building the GUI from A1
Ensure the target icons are placed at the bottom of the GUI screen, and the instructions and the start button are placed at the top of the GUI screen.
Show a numeric counter that tells you how many trials out of 50 have been completed (e.g., 9/50). This counter is updated after each icon click.
The idea of expanding targets is that as the mouse gets closer and closer to the icon (the target), the icon expands so that the mouse is required to move less. In your program, get the current (x,y) position of the mouse and calculate the distance between the mouse and a given icon. Develop a formula so that depending on the distance of the mouse, the icon size will change -- in particular, a shorter distance will correspond to a larger icon.
Since the program doesn't know what the user will click on, make sure you implement expanding targets for all 5 icons. That means, if the mouse is closest to the rightmost icon, then the rightmost icon will be biggest in comparison to the rest, and the second rightmost icon will be second biggest in comparison to the rest, and so forth.
A note on expanding targets: As your mouse gets closer to the icons, you will find that multiple icons will get bigger, and they may start to "overlap". Do not let them overlap! Your icons will need to push its neighbours outward so that none of them overlap with each other no matter where the mouse is.
Below are two screenshots from my sample solution:
Overall, your program has 5 icons and 50 trials. For each trial, randomly pick an icon as the target. Take care that you will need a custom random method that generates the 5 icons 10 times each in a random order. (In other words, if you only use a simple random method, you could end up with one icon 21 times and another icon 5 times.) Then display text instruction above the Start button centered horizontally, asking the user which icon to click on at each trial.
Lastly, based on what the target is and what the user has selected, log that information into the file. For example, if your icons are numbered 1 through 5, your partial log file would look like this:
```
  1867, 3, 3
  1545, 5, 2
  1420, 3, 3
  1993, 2, 2
  ...
  
```
where each row is a trial, with the first number as the task completion time for that trial, the second number as the target icon ID, and the third number as the selected icon ID. The data is logged in comma separated format so that you can easily load it up into Excel and do various calculations with it after.

Resources

Definition for distance between two points
Resizing images dynamically in Java
Using the GridBagLayout in Java

Grading Criteria

[4 pts] A working GUI from A1 with a working trial counter and instructions for selecting a random icon
[8 pts] All icons expand smoothly as expected
[3 pts] A reasonable formula is used to implement expanding targets
[4 pts] Target icon and selected icon information are logged
[3 pts] The program does not crash after 50 random trials with a uniform distribution for each icon, logs all the data as expected, and successfully exits
[2 pts] Documentation as required in your submission