Re: UI Guidelines: Dialogs (2nd draft)

[Liam Quin <liam holoweb net>]

> Here's my 2nd attempt at the Dialogs section of the UI guidelines
> document. It's still not perfect, but I'm rather busy at the moment
> and you wouldn't see anything from me if I tried to be a
> perfectionist.
I'd far rather see something incomplete that not see perfection :-)

some things I'd like to see added:

* a dialogue box should do one thing. Don't try and put too much
  functionality on one screen at once. Use notebook tabs if necessary.

* the dialogue should read (for Western users) left to right,
  top to bottom.  Assume people will fill in a field and then move
  down a line.
  (ideally, pressing return would take you to each field or control
  in order, then to the do-it button, then activate the button)

* align controls vertically:
      x: _______
  width: _______
         [blue | red | green | yellow]

  and not
    x: _______
    width: _______
    [blue | red | green | yellow]

  (this sounds like a small detail, but it makes applications look
  much slicker and more "professional", and that in turn increases
  users' confidence)

* remember to give the dialogue a title, and to give enough information
  to help the user contextualise it. Imagine the user went for lunch and
  came back to see the dialogue.
  For example, "OK to delete file?" is hopeless, because the user won't
  know which file, nor what the consequences are of saying yes or no.

I'm sure much more could be said, bt if the document is too long,
no-one will read it anyway :-)

Liam (Ankh on IRC)


-- 
Liam Quin - Barefoot in Toronto - liam holoweb net - http://www.holoweb.net/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net www.valinor.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org
author, The Open Source XML Database Toolkit, Wiley, August 2000
Co-author, The XML Specification Guide, Wiley, 1999