I tend to agree with Will here; a couple of years ago I was working
for a company in the UK. The software gave users access to different
functions or features depending on their permissions, but the
developers opted to make all functions show while those that were
unavailable were greyed out.
W
Thanks for the replies! I'll go with the disabled tooltip solution.
I think that's best :) Sometimes you just need a little confirmation
on your thoughts to make up your mind ;)
Thanks again.
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On Dec 8, 2008, at 10:56 AM, Michael Micheletti wrote:
So I seem to be following your rules at the feature level - if the
users have phone functionality, show them all the phone controls,
even if some are disabled. Within a feature/panel though, I'll
always show the controls. So, for examp
I like the clear way you've stated these rules Jack, thanks.
I recently did a design review with support and field engineers looking at
concept sketches. They all spoke out (rather strongly) to request that
controls always be visible on the screen and not disappear. It seems that
vanishing control
The only exception to the above rules I can think of is when a user
can never use a particular tool. Or when they can only use it should
someone give them new permissions.
An example of this might be admin tools that only a site
administrator needs, such as deleting posts on a forum, or a menu
ite
I for one would say never make interface items disappear, as it might
startle the user and might create modes, and modes are usually
difficult to deal with.
Disabling might be a solution. Including rollover tooltips that
explain why buttons are disabled might help the user understand the
situation
Bart,
Your instincts are correct. Here's a post I made on my blog awhile back:
Developers often ask me whether a function should be hidden when not
available, or merely disabled. I gave them the following two rules
in my UI Design First Aid lecture.
When a function is unavailable due to cu
I'm struggling with an UI issue, so I'm hoping to receive some advice from
you. Imagine a textprocessor (i.e. Word) application in which you can edit
both text and image objects. The interface is clean and simple, only the
most needed functions are available in this app. An advantage of the
limited
