What kind of design suits
- a change function,
- with lots of data elements,
- that won't fit on one screen?
A Wizard?
The first answer that comes to my mind is a wizard.
But the sequential navigation of a wizard is a bit too cumbersome for high frequency usage.
It should be easier to navigate to a specific detail screen.
Multiple tabs?
A second thought is to use tabs as navigation between the various detail screens.
Hm, this design looks quite good at first sight.
But it poses some navigation challenges.
- The user is easily tempted to click from tab to tab, without confirming the changes with the save button.
- What navigation should be when the user
does
click the save button?
- Automatic navigation to a next tab strikes me as unnatural.
In addition the user lacks the feedback confirming successful save of the changes.
- Stay on the detail screen?
That would pose troubles for the feedback too and it requires a manual action to move on to the next screen.
Summary > detail
An alternative, inspired on Jef Raskin's ZoomWorld
(Chapter 6-2, Zoomworld, from
The Humane Interface)
|
Prompt A |
Detail 1,
2,
3,
4,
5
| Prompt D |
Detail 31,
32,
33
|
Prompt B |
Detail 11,
12
| Prompt E |
Detail 41,
42,
43,
44
|
Prompt C |
Detail 26,
27,
28,
29,
30
|
- An overview lists a summary of all details.
It offers links to several follow up screens to change the details.
- Every detail screen has
A click on the save button stores the data and flows back to a refreshed summary.
I like this design, although it is unusual.
- The navigation is nicely consistent with usual list-detail screens.
- The navigation is predictable, with clear, standard interface elements:
- The user is not easily tempted to leave the detail screen prematurely.
Summary & detail
Still, I'm not yet fully comfortable with the navigation between summary and detail screens.
Why have 2 screens, why not just one?
It should be possible to edit on the spot, right in the summary screen, by enlarging a section till edit mode.
Yes that is possible, but it will give the save navigation problems as the tabs.
I'll stick to a summary and detail screen.
Till
next week,
Nut
|