>Purely subjective UI question. What do people prefer on a toolbar or
>form given that there is some process which can be started and stopped.
>
>(a) Two buttons ie: [Start] [Stop] one of which is always not enabled,
>(ie when the process in underway only Stop is enabled)
>
>or
>
>(b) One button which changes - ie [Start] which once the process starts
>changes to [Stop]
>
>I suspect from what I re-call of POET and other UI books that (a) is the
>best choice as swapping UI around on people is generally considered a
>bad thing, but then two buttons take up twice the amount of limited
>screen real-estate...
Most of the UI design books refer to the changing interface as bad. The best
example of bad comes from Microsoft.
Button Labels are in capitals and buttons are in a comma separated list.
Button labels with {} around them are diabled.
1. Dialog appears with - {OK},CLOSE,{APPLY}
2. changes are made - OK, CANCEL, APPLY
3. Apply is Clicked - {OK}, CLOSE, {APPLY}
Operations that cannot be 'undone' should not be able to be applied since the
user clicks this button believing that the operation can be undone...
--
Aaron Scott-Boddendijk
Jump Productions
(07) 838-3371 Voice
(07) 838-3372 Fax
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