Home Teach and assess Classroom resources Courses or tutorials Coding for GUIs (Javascript edition) course Lesson 4: Flipping images
Lesson 4: Flipping images Image

About this lesson

This is the fourth in a series of lessons to incorporate graphical user interfaces (GUIs) into your general-purpose programming. The series follows on from the Visual To Text Coding lesson series.

Year band: 7-8

Curriculum Links Assessment

Learning sequence

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Learning hook

In pairs, students should visit userinyerface.com and try the challenge.

User Inyerface is an online ‘game’ where the player must survive working through a frustratingly designed sign-up form. The challenge is to see whether you can get through the whole form.

While working through, the student pair needs to write down as many poor user interface design choices as they can.

Note: Although the game does not use personal details, it is recommended that students enter fake details when filling out the form.

Finally, come together as a class and have student pairs call out each design problem as you proceed through. For each one, discuss what could have been done instead to improve the user experience.

The activity above touches on the third of 4 principles for good User Interface design (distilled from this article hosted by Adobe): Reduce cognitive load. A GUI should:

  • organise elements visually for clarity, chunking or grouping elements where appropriate
  • allow recognition through familiar symbols and tooltips
  • minimise the number of actions required to complete a task (e g. the 'three click rule-of-thumb')
Photo of a Lego figure sitting at desk with frustrated face.

Image credit: www_slon_pics/ Pixabay

Learning map and outcomes

In this lesson, students will:

  1. access an online programming environment for JavaScript alongside HTML and CSS,
  2. create an interactive dice roll simulation with dice face images that change when you roll,
  3. create a dynamic data visualisation to show teaspoons of sugar in various drinks,
  4. take on a fresh coding challenge to create your own dynamic data visualisation.

Learning input

The videos below introduce the two main applications we'll make in this lesson.

 

Discuss as a class: How can students ensure that images they are using in their GUIs are not restricted due to copyright?

Possible answer

By understanding Creative Commons and Public Domain licenses, and learning about the places to find them, students can use images appropriately, giving attribution when necessary.

Learning construction

Step 1: Setup

In this course, different environments will be selected based on their suitability for each demonstrated project.

For more on the set-up and environments used, see Lesson 1.

Step 2: Constructing the dice roll simulator

This video builds the digital clock application from the ground up.

Try it yourself before checking the solution code.

Solution Code

The short video below demonstrates how the same application can optionally be developed offline on your own computer desktop.

Remember, you'll need a plain text editor to edit the code files (.html, .css and .js). Do not attempt to use a standard Word Processor like Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

Step 3: Tinkering with the dice roll simulator

Plain text files Image Click to learn more
Plain text files

By editing the HTML, CSS and JavaScript, upgrade the dice roll application as follows:

Solution Code

Extra extension task: The user now has a choice whether to roll 6-sided dice or 12-sided dice.

Screenshot of amock-up dice simulation. Users select number of sides for the first die: six or twelve. Users select the number of sides for the second die: six or twelve. This uses radio buttons so that only one option can be selected at a time. An image of each die appears underneath. Users select the button 'Click here' and the simulator tells the users they rolled n amount of times.

Step 4: Second program – how much sugar?

Solution Code

The video below demonstrates how to create a dynamic data visualisation showing how much sugar is in various drinks.

Try it yourself before checking the solution code.

Step 5: Tinkering with the visualisation

Make the following adjustments to the solution

  • Research one more drink of your choice. You'll need an image of the drink as well as the number of teaspoons of sugar in it.
  • By editing the HTML, CSS and JavaScript, add the new drink to the solution so that it behaves like the others.
  • Also add a link to your source below the first source in the footer.
Solution Code

Challenge

These challenges use the skills covered so far. By writing or modifying their own programs, students have an opportunity to demonstrate Application and Creation.

Challenge 1

This challenge is to create a new dynamic data visualisation, using a small amount of data sourced from an online repository or a class survey.

  • Start by deciding what data you will try to display. A simple set of 10 or fewer values is enough.
  • Prepare an annotated mock-up to show how the solution will looks and work. When the user clicks or mouses over a category, your solution might:
    • repeat an image to represent a whole number, similar to the 'How much sugar?' approach,
    • scale a single image to represent different relative amounts (see the sample solution below),
    • perform some other visualisation of data.
  • Find or create the image(s) you'll need for your solution.
  • Use HTML, CSS and JavaScript to create the data visualisation. You might begin by forking the 'How much sugar?' solution in this lesson.

Challenge 2

Solution Code

This second challenge is more open-ended. Now that you know how to switch images, see if you can create a simple game that employs buttons to take actions and a single image to represent a location or status.

For example:

  • An adventure game with buttons to move North, South, East and West. A text area explains what is happening in the story, and an image gives an illustration.
  • A combat game with buttons to attack, defend or use magic/items. The enemy is shown as an image that changes as the enemy is wounded or defeated.

Games like the above will involve significantly more JavaScript code than previous challenges in this course. Consider organising your code with functions for the buttons and a main function called to update the game once a button has its effect.

Resources

  • Online environments for creating webpages with HTML, CSS and JavaScript:
  • Introductory courses
  • JavaScript CheatSheet (Tip: Press the little blue tabs to move Variables, Basics, Strings and Data Types to the top.)