From the Preface:

Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines: Advanced Topics provides guidelines for anyone designing user interfaces for applications written in the Java programming language. In particular, this book offers design guidelines for applications that use the Java look and feel. This book supplements Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, 2d ed.

Although some topics in Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines: Advanced Topics apply only to certain types of applications, most topics apply to all applications that use the Java look and feel.

This book does not provide detailed discussions of human interface design principles or the design process, nor does it present information about task analysis--an essential concept in user interface design.

Many of this book's guidelines can be applied to applications that use the Java look and feel to display text in any language. However, the usability of the book's guidelines and examples has been tested only with languages in which users read left to right. If you are designing for users who read right to left, use your judgment to decide whether this book's guidelines regarding layout are appropriate for your application.

Intended Audience:

Primarily, this book addresses the designer who chooses an application's user-interface elements, lays them out in a set of components, and designs the user interaction model for an application. This book should also prove useful for software developers, technical writers, graphic artists, production and marketing specialists, and testers who help create applications that use the Java look and feel.

Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines: Advanced Topics focuses on design issues and human-computer interaction in the context of the Java look and feel. For information about technical aspects of the Java Foundation Classes (JFC), visit the JFC and Swing Connection web sites:

- http://java.sun.com/products/jfc
- http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc

The guidelines in this book are appropriate for GUI applications that run on personal computers and network computers. These guidelines are not intended for software that runs on consumer electronic devices, such as wireless telephones or personal digital assistants (PDAs).