Could you do Task B in a pop up? Or the appearance of a pop up- gray out the Task A screen and only return to it after the highlighted Task B screen is completed. Task B would appear in a smaller window highlighted in the center but would not be an actual separate window.
Cheers, Julie On Nov 30, 2007 10:02 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 > ________________________________________________________________ *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
