Interfaces

I've recently heard of interfaces.

Can someone tell me what exactly are interface and how to add them in dreamweaver. Or maybe show me to a site that explains something, because I'm completely, utterly lost

 

Interfaces? Interface is a communication portal between two entities.

When applied to web design an interface is the way you set up your site, with the navigation and layout being very huge parts of it. Because if you screw them up, then your site won't be very usable. For example a very common interface is having a set of buttons on the left side of the page and the space for the content on the right side.

 

That eplains a lot! Thanks!

 

From systems engineeering lecture notes, an interface is "the set of objects by which a user interacts with a system." Commonly, users follow the "model of exploratory learning", which means the user approaches a system with a goal, explores the interface objects, performs some action, interprets the result and moves on.

When applied to a web site, an interface is the entire visual, aural or other manifestation of the site that allows a user to perform actions on the site. That includes the links and buttons, any features like Java applets or Flash movies.

However, having an interface does not equate having an interface design. The design of an interface is the "deliberate specification of the interface objects including appearance, arrangement and temporal sequence." The goal is to facilitate the user to acomplish his or her goals as effectively as possible.

 

Well in web design, what is refered to as an interface is a graphical design that sort of looks like some type of machine, It might look like a computer terminal or a some mystical device with gears, buttons, pipes, sliding panels, etc. You could see examples here:

GUIstuff

For Dreamweaver basicly you need to find a template that implements the interface you like and just load it in Dreamweaver, quite simple.

Of course interface, being such a generic term could be easily for something else based on context. There are interfaces to web services like SOAP, or you could refere to an interface between your web pages and a database, etc.