Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture, Volume 1, A System of Patterns

2.4 Interactive Systems

Today’s systems allow a high degree of user interaction, mainly achieved with help of graphical user interfaces. The objective is to enhance the usability of an application. Usable software systems provide convenient access to their services, and therefore allow users to learn the application and produce results quickly.

When specifying the architecture of such systems, the challenge is to keep the functional core independent of the user interface. The core of interactive systems is based on the functional requirements for the system, and usually remains stable. User interfaces, however, are often subject to change and adaptation. For example, systems may have to support different user interface standards, customer-specific ‘look and feel’ metaphors, or interfaces that must be adjusted to fit into a customer’s business processes. This requires architectures that support the adaptation of user interface parts without causing major effects to application-specific functionality or the data model underlying the software.

We describe two patterns that provide a fundamental structural organization for interactive software systems:

• The Model-View-Controller pattern (MVC) (125) divides an interactive application into three components. The model contains the core functionality and data. Views display information to the user. Controllers handle user input. Views and controllers together comprise the user interface. A change-propagation mechanism ensures consistency ...