I have done a lot of reading in this area too, finding some of the best information by googling for HCI (human computer interface) and UX (user experience) sites and blogs.
In addition to reading about UI theory, it makes sense to zero in on the particular run-time environment, such as a browser and both read up on best practices and check out what others are doing before doing your own thing any way, perhaps. After all, the good thing about standards is that everyone can have their own ;-) If you haven not read "Don't Make Me Think" then I highly recommend doing so. It illustrates by it's easy reader interface what it discusses. I've read it twice. We started with an existing vendor framework for MV AJAX, which comes pre-packaged with browser UI components. So, we have been evolving the UI by reaping the low-hanging fruit, then seeing what standards we want to add or change. That means that we have some things I would not have put in there from the start (such as some validation alerts, instead of perhaps happier approaches), that we have simply used out of the box and not yet tailored for our needs. I tend toward Keep it Simple, but the "simple" I want is that it be simple for the user and also, frankly, for maintainability over time. It is rarely simplest for us to do what is simplest for the user. It definitely takes work to make the user interface simple. For each decision there is now a ton of information, as you have found. While tackling some of it up front, many decisions arise during specific design tasks later in the development. It is counter-productive to do all such research and decision-making up front (the BDUF approach). EXAMPLE We started with field labels above the data entry field (to the left is the other common option, with inside the field being another new fangled approach), using short upper-cased words. I had researched enough to select the positioning of our labels when starting out, not the wording. When I got to the point of looking at how to write the labels, such as "Last Name" or "Last name" or "What is your last name?" or "Your last name" [not to mention choosing last name over family name or surname, another issue], I read that there was an ISO standard of "sentence casing" for field labels. Who knew? For what it's worth, we decided on sentence casing our labels, so in our alpha delivery of our software, the label is written as "Last name" instead of Last Name. --dawn On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 7:33 AM, Susan Joslyn <[email protected]> wrote: > Good morning. > > > > In developing a new user interface - how have you folks established > standards? > > > > When I google around I find an immense amount of information. > Accessibility > standards. Industry standards. And many games and applications have > published their standards - how to make your software look like theirs so > your users are already familiar. I don't see as many published standards > regarding data entry screens. (But I am still plowing through thousands of > search results!) Still many of these standards are personal choice. Or in > some cases far to the opposite extreme - you can find psychological studies > about what colors to use, for example. > > > > If you set standards on a previous interface and now move to another - how > much do you want to stick to your standards for consistency and > compatibility and how much do you want to break out and show-off that this > is, after all, a new interface? > > > > Obviously there are technical limitations - with the new stuff, always. > But > what about design decisions you made based on previous limitations - and > now > those limitations are lifted!? How crazy do you go? What do users really > want? (Now there is something to ponder!) > > > > Any thoughts, ideas, references and discussion on this topic from anyone? > > > > Susan > > _______________________________________________ > U2-Users mailing list > [email protected] > http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users > -- Dawn M. Wolthuis Take and give some delight today _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list [email protected] http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
