This book is about how to make MATLAB-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) tools. It falls naturally into two parts:



• GUI design, or how to make something that’s useful



• GUI implementation, or how to make something that works The principles of good GUI design are, for the most part, timeless and universal. They apply in MATLAB as much as they apply anywhere else,though we consider them here with respect to specific examples. The guidelines for GUI implementation, on the other hand, tend to be much more specific—many of the implementation details we discuss here weren’t possible in MATLAB until recently. Accordingly, in this manualthere is a trend from the general to the specific. Part of the second half of the manual is devoted to the use of MATLAB’s GUI-building tool, Guide (Graphical User Interface Development Environment). A quick start

example of how to use Guide also closes out this introductory chapter.