Thanks for this, Oleh.
This would work well if Task B was a complete once and only once sort of thing. What I don't think I managed to get across was that it's fully up to the user each time whether they want to go through Task B again or not. If they've never done Task B before, they are *forced* into Task B to create a widget to work with. However, even if they *have* done Task B before, and have widgets to work with, they may still choose to define a new widget to work with - one that's not already in their list. Unfortunately (I think) your great design only allows for completing Task B once and only once. Am I right? Sorry for leaving that important detail out! Meredith ________________________________ From: Oleh Kovalchuke [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 1:15 PM To: Meredith Noble Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] nested, multi-step progress bars Here is one possible solution for the progress bar. Progress bar in the beginning of the wizard: A step1 A step2 B step1 B step2 B step3 B step4 A step3 Progress bar at the branching point (B path has been completed): Replace star (*) with "done" check mark. *A step1 A step2 *B step1 *B step2 *B step3 *B step4 A step3 Progress bar at the branching point (B path has not been completed): *A step1 A step2 B step1 B step2 B step3 B step4 A step3 Progress bar past the branching point (working on B path): *A step1 *A step2 *B step1 B step2 B step3 B step4 A step3 This progress bar keeps users informed about future steps at all times as well as educates them about the connection between pathways A and B (builds the conceptual model of the workflow) for the future similar tasks. Oleh On Nov 30, 2007 9:02 AM, Meredith Noble <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hi all, I'm looking for some ideas on how to design progress bars for some nested flows. In the application I'm designing right now, we have two flows for two related tasks, task A and task B. Task A has 3 steps, and Task B has 4 steps. Task B can be done independently, without task A, but MUST be completed before Task A can be completed. The trick is that we allow people to enter the flow for Task A, and then jump out to Task B if they need/wish to. In other words, instead of just doing A1 -> A2 -> A3, some users instead go through the steps: A1 -> B1 -> B2 -> B3 -> B4 -> A2 -> A3. Has anyone ever designed progress bars for something like this before? We can't predict in advance whether or not a user will want to jump out to Task B from Task A, so we can't simply include those steps in our progress bar off the bat. The other solutions I can envision are: a) Dynamically updating the progress bar to include 7 steps after the user can indicated a desire to go to Task B (maybe visually indicating that some are substeps, so as not to overwhelm the user) b) Simply replacing the Task A progress bar with the Task B progress bar until Task B is finished, then going back to the Task A progress bar afterward Phew, I hope I've been clear here. It's hard to explain without a concrete example! I can see shortcomings in both of these solutions so I'm hoping someone might have a suggestion for something else elegant that I've missed... Thanks all, Meredith ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Meredith Noble Information Architect, Usability Matters Inc. 416-598-7770, ext. 6 [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Oleh Kovalchuke Interaction Design is the Design of Time http://www.tangospring.com/IxDtopicWhatIsInteractionDesign.htm ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
