Generation of test samples for construction of dashboard design guidelines: Impact of color on layout balance

Abstract

The metric-based evaluation of user interfaces is a promising way to quickly evaluate their usability and other various design aspects. However, development of such metrics usually requires a sufficiently large training set of realistic-looking user interface samples, which might not be always easy to find. This paper describes a workflow of the preparation of such samples. It presents a configurable generator based on the composition of simple widgets into a screen according to a predefined model. It also describes a reusable library for simple creation of widgets using capabilities of the JavaScript framework Vue.js. The application of the implemented generator is then demonstrated on the generation of dashboard samples which are used to show the significance of color in the measuring of the layout balance.