Program Overview

The general appearance of the program can be seen in Figure 3.1. The basic layout of the application never changes during operation, meaning that it is always familiar to the user. At the top, there is a line of text, providing instructions and information to the user. Below this are buttons to restart the program, and to submit the current route request. Most importantly, below the buttons is a map.

Figure 3.1: The End-User Software

To find a route, the user simply clicks on the start and end nodes^3.2 and then selects the find route button. Alternatively, the last node may be double-clicked. Additionally, a drop-down list of alphabetically sorted node names appears in the button bar, which can be used in place of or in addition to the click-able map. When the route is returned from the server, it is overlayed on the map in a distinctive colour, indicating where line changes are required.