{Serious} User Interface design

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Originally Posted by dee-u

What is your alternative for message boxes? Timed form that disappears automatically?

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Labels... Balloon tips are very good..

Btw your graphic is coming soon :p

Balloon tips are a great way to alert the user without interfering with their session.

What graphic? Are you making a "IE Lover" userbar? :D

Hmmmnnn... I cant somehow imagine how I would want to show a Balloon tip in the middle of the screen to show some status or something, any screenies?

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Originally Posted by RobDog888

What graphic? Are you making a "IE Lover" userbar?

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I am not with the battle of the browsers... :D It's just a software carpenter thingy...

I've got no menu's in my app, and it is completely command (button) driven. I started out with nothing but messageboxes, but decided that users don't like to have to center their attention and lose focus on the current form, just to process info. I added a few more textboxes in frames that became visible, and changed the background color to alert the user of a problem. Now, instead of 20 msgboxes, I'm down to maybe one or two.

Baloon tips have to multiple choice possiblities, so I really dislike them. The worst thing about them is that you can't get rid of them until their timer goes out.

If I unplug the network cable, do I really need a baloon to pop up for 5 seconds, every time I open the lid of my laptop? You'd think that clicking the X once should signify that I realized that I unplugged the cable.

I go on-site, and set up WIFI routers, which sometimes require me to use my laptop. This causes that icon to be present until I reboot, which I don't do very often.

/rant off

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Originally Posted by dee-u

Hmmmnnn... I cant somehow imagine how I would want to show a Balloon tip in the middle of the screen to show some status or something, any screenies?


I am not with the battle of the browsers... :D It's just a software carpenter thingy...

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Kind of like how when in Windows XP you try to enter your password to logon and if you have the CAP lock on it will balloon tip you right next to the password textbox to notify you.

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Originally Posted by dglienna

Baloon tips have to multiple choice possiblities, so I really dislike them. The worst thing about them is that you can't get rid of them until their timer goes out

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_HIDEBALLOONTIP ;)

It's completely the fault of the software developer if it's annoying.

Hmmmnnn... That gives me an idea though I think there are cases that Balloon tips cannot be used as an alternative like when you need options like Yes/No right?

Not really. Replacing message boxes for that requires a re-think of your design.

I like UI's that allow multiple tasks at once. A message box would interrupt all of them.

You could use a little mini-popup thing with the option, that appears over one task and only interrupts that one. That way the user can go on working in other areas at the same time. Sort of like MS Office's Task Pane.

I have always ran into sentiments of "experts" about avoiding using Message Boxes but really haven't found out how to totally rid of them, I've been accustomed to using something like...

VB Code:

If MsgBox("Are you sure you want to save House BL?   ", vbQuestion + vbYesNo, "Confirm") = vbYes Then

and

VB Code:

If Len(Trim$(txtPkgCode)) = 0 Then
            MsgBox "Cannot save record with invalid blank entries.   ", vbCritical, "Status"
            txtPkgCode.SetFocus
            Exit Sub
        End If

Though I think the lower example could be replaced by a Balloon Tip on the control...

Without seeing your design I wouldn't be able to suggest a replacement for the message box but for the second you could simply show a balloon tip for the text box. I belive the message is EM_SHOWBALLOONTIP and there are some samples in the Codebank.

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Originally Posted by penagate

_HIDEBALLOONTIP ;)

It's completely the fault of the software developer if it's annoying.

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I guess I'd have to blame Microsoft for the Cable Disconnected baloon-tip then.
I'm sure many people hate them, as they tend to be "informational" when you are the one that performed the action to begin with. I'd love to see a Yes/No/Cancel baloon, but if it disappeared after 5 seconds, it would be useless.

you can set the timeout as infinite, so it never disappears until manually dismissed.

I'd like to see one too :)

Design Specifications and Guidelines

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Originally Posted by penagate

Without seeing your design I wouldn't be able to suggest a replacement for the message box...

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Lets just cite cases when something that is to be done by the user is irreversible hence they need to be at least prompted if they are sure on what they are doing...

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Originally Posted by penagate

... but for the second you could simply show a balloon tip for the text box.

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I edited my previous post to comment with a similar one like yours. :)

Whats up with your userbars sig image? austrialans cant hag? :D

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Originally Posted by RobDog888

Whats up with your userbars sig image? austrialans cant hag? :D

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Eh ? :confused:

I can't even see it. I think the server is down.

And to complement my previous link...

Windows XP Visual Guidelines

Why they had to make it a downloadable EXE that unzips to a bunch of html files, I do not know, but still...

Its been down off and on for the past couple of days causing some page hangs here at vbf. :(

I removed it. The IE one's on Imageshack.

I have been waiting for it to be back online again so I can same that Raiders bar. :( I asked if we could get a special area to house the bars here at VBF. Looks like it may get a :thumb: :D

A book for all those interested in moving UI's forward:
The Humane Interface

How's this fora new approach to interface design :)

http://www.dontclick.it/

OMG that's annoying

This may sound dumb, but I hate when programs don't remember the last positon they were in.

iTunes automatically moves the window fully within the viewable screen whenever you start it up.

MS Word will NOT remember that it was maximized the last time I had it running. It takes up 100% of the screen if it was maximized last time I used it, but isn't actually maximized. This causes me to throw my mouse to the top right and close it, but actually close the program behind it because the close button isn't quite where I think it is.

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Originally Posted by eyeRmonkey

This causes me to throw my mouse to the top right and close it, but actually close the program behind it because the close button isn't quite where I think it is.

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Yay, someone else that does that :p

Sounds like you guys need to get better coordination skills. Word works perfectly for me and always remembers its previous settings.

Of course we don't know which version of Word everyone is using :)

I really like GUIs that don't require you to reach for the mouse. It's a real pain when there's just one or two functions you can't access except by using the mouse.

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Originally Posted by Merri

Of course we don't know which version of Word everyone is using :)

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Mac Word 5. A software masterpiece, superceded by the blob of poo that was Word6 and beyond.

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Originally Posted by yrwyddfa

Mac Word 5. A software masterpiece...

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Ha! I knew it, a Mac user. This explains a lot.

Ditto!

PC Word XP (student version - but its not that much different I think). Any idea where I can find a setting that might fix my problem? I don't want to hijack this thread, but I thought RD might know of a setting that lets Word remember where if it was maximized or not when I closed it last.

There is a breed of users that do not want to touch a mouse - do not want to look at a screen...

Want to have all keypresses occur near the numeric keypad.

Then there are users of applications that only want to use a mouse - only want to click here and there.

We mostly design UI's for clerks - health claim entry clerks, cash-window clerks, payment processing, invoice processing.

When a user like that types something incorrect, then you have no choice but to force them into an infinite message box. Until they realize the mistake - and choose the proper answer - like "Y" for "yes I realize I typed garbage" - they must be stopped. Letting them click or enter or tab by that problem and continue would be a critical failure for them.

When I use video editing software - I never want to touch the keyboard - except for using the arrow keys, or some other key shortcuts - but mouse production is what it's all about. That is a completely different world then UI's for clerks...

But in general - a UI should match the majority of UI's that a user sees - which is MS - so that's the benchmark we all should work against.

I personally hate the "three answer" message box - YES, NO and CANCEL - where a novice user can't tell if CANCEL will kill everything they have just done or simply cancel the "exit" they accidentally clicked - that's my biggest complaint!

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Originally Posted by szlamany

I personally hate the "three answer" message box - YES, NO and CANCEL - where a novice user can't tell if CANCEL will kill everything they have just done or simply cancel the "exit" they accidentally clicked - that's my biggest complaint!

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That's actually a big one. It's been debated in the past whether that is logical at all. I find it logical and so would most experienced computer users but those that haven't encountered it probably wouldn't.

Personally I think qeustion message boxes should be better worded so that they can only have Yes/No options... Even OK/Cancel is not very logical I think.

I also find them logical - but then again, I read a MSGBOX when it appears ;)

But my users don't want to read them...

I've always wanted to use the Enter Key to move to the next textboxes but I have recently realized it wont work if there is a textbox that have a multiline set to true, anyof you who have a workaround for this? Aside from using Tab?

Ctrl + Enter like in many chat programs. I use it in my own IRC client as well.

Thanks Merri... :afrog: