No effective methodology exists to assist user-interface designers in the process of translating high-level system requirements and functional semantics into user-interface design specifications. Traditional -user-interface guidelines are too limited; they are too vague, do not specify how they can be realized, are not context sensitive, and insufficiently address program functionality. This thesis analyzes the feasibility of a user-interface design methodology beneficial to designers in the translation process. A user interface may be viewed as a patterned series--with the patterns describing sets of conflicting forces which occur in particular contexts, followed by specific configurations which stabilize the conflicting forces. Patterns can be used to map requirements and functional semantics onto user-interface design specifications. The bases for the 30 defined patterns are described. An example demonstrates how patterns are useful to translate requirements and functional semantics into user-interface design specifications.