User Interface design ideas?

[rmcgaffic]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

JP,

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Your screenprints are exactly what I have been searching for. I just though it was rather odd that it never occurred to Alpha to include such functionality in A5.

I don't want to go to a lot of effort and hassle to create appointments or schedules, and I certainly don't want to re-invent the wheel.

Neither do I want to do complex XBasic programming for a hierarchical browse which is a requirement for any kind of knowledge management or task/project outlining. Again Brilliant offers it right out of the box.

For my application, I was looking for three out of the box capabilities: email, calendar, and hierarchical grid/browse. Alpha delivers only the first.

As to the screenprints that were posted on this thread, my opinion is that they can be substantially improved. Guys, how about taking a look at Brilliant's forms and see if you can't pick up a pointer or two.

Listen, this is not a beauty contest which several of you seem to think it is.
It is about having an application that looks good at the customer demo stage and works well with users day after day after day.

For starters, I would make a couple of suggestions for David Kates' form:

1. Do not use a gradient for a browse row. Using a gradient for the column titles for the browse is just fine.
2. Do not use two styles of browses in the same form. Your form has two browses and they have different colors for the row 2 color. Why? A simpler and less jaring choice is to use one color.
3. The Browse's header should be the darker color. How about lightening up the blue for the Row 2 color.
4. Multiple browses on the same form should use the same font, size, and weight. Drop the use of bold for the left browse.
5. Adjust the row height of your browse, it is too large. I see that you may being using word wrap, but see if you lengthed the field to avoid this. Alpha's videos on button in grids provides a good example. The button should snugly fit in the cell, not with a gap like yours has on its bottom edge.
6. Consolidate and rearrange your buttons. I personally place my application icons at the top of a form (consistent with most commercial enterpise software today), but if you place them at the bottom that's fine. Why do you have two separate groupings of them.
7. Your buttons are two different heights for no apparent reason. Please, please make them the same size.
8. Your buttons use different gradients. Again why? Pick one and use it on all buttons.
9. The background color of your form and of the tab control don't work well. Ever consider selecting one color and then using Alpha's Solid color percents (starting with 90% down to transparent) to lighten the same color for the background.
10. Try to avoid white on a dark color for your labels. Nothing wrong with a slightly darker color for the label, but not so dark that you have to use white for the font color so that your text is readable.

OK, that's enough for now. But look how simple it was to make Dave's form more attractive and require a lot less work than he surely expended.

David, I hope you don't think I'm picking on you. I wish I had the time to write a paper comparing and contrasting the user interfaces of the top 50 selling enterprise, logistics, crm, or human resource packages today. I think if more Alpha users had this perspective, they could design stronger applications from the getgo.

Dave Mason's form presents even larger opportunities for improvement.

While I don't have the time to redesign your forms from scratch, if either of you would like to zip a database with the empty tables and the forms that you've shown here, I am willing to do a makeover if you would find that useful. Simple, clean, uncluttered is the look we're after.

Bob McGaffic
Pittsburgh, PA

PS: Any one notice that Brilliant's forms are consistent with my recommendations above?

PPS: Although it's just a first reaction, Brilliant appears to be the product I was hoping Alpha was. I haven't seen version 10, but I am really concerned that all the sneak peak improvements are for web based applications. May be this is Alpha's way of slowly, but surely, pulling the plug on its desktop capabilities by allowing other vendors to surpass it?

[[email protected]]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

This is how I have been handling my designs. Like some have already stated, it would be nice to have a better graphic screen designer interface as I can't even draw a straight line; however, I also try to go just for the functionality vs the looks. Presently, I'm just doing Desktop applications, so I can get by...here's one of my screens that is built to use a touch screen (so bigger buttons)...Ryland

[rmcgaffic]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Ryland,

I extend my offer to Dave and David to you. Whoever gets to me first.

Bob McGaffic
Pittsburgh, PA

[DaveM]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Robert,

Thank you for the offer, but this was designed for my customer base and no one has had any complaints of the beauty side. For different applications(customer based), the looks would be completely different. This one hase never been beat out in it's arena because anything looked better.

I will stay with what I have. The customers like it this way. I have a lady friend who is going to do the beautification on a new project coming up. I already have 80% of the program written and it is just very plain right now. It is written mostly for feminine use and I figured a female touch would help it out for sales. I will market this one in about 3 months.

I think Steve may have wanted to see how some of this is done. Each of us has a different way/method depending on our customer base. I like the menu on the side like JP did. One day, I may have a use for something like that. So a thread like this can be helpful to a lot of us.

.

[gmeredith17]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Bob,

I agree with your observations although I'm not the best at implementing them. I have to keep thinking less is more. Don't get carried away with the gradients and try to keep a crisp, clean looking GUI. One of the points you have not raised is to try and choose colours that will be acceptable to male and female users. Many applications have very male orientated interface colour schemes, so when picking a colour scheme try to for something that will appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

Also I have noticed a tendency for designers to make their forms very busy. Lots of fields and data packed into one form. Users can be overwhelmed by this approach. I suspect this is one of the reasons you desire a dashboard control as this allows information to be available to the eye without the detail. Then just one click of the mouse and you can drill down to the specific details required.

I think Alpha has come a long way since V7 with regard to the control over the interface but there is still some way to go. I am hoping that V10 may have updated some of the desktop controls that have been forgotten over the years (tab and tree function spring to mind). I disagree with some regarding Alpha updating their icons. This is something each developer can invest in as per their application requirements to give it a more unique and modern feel. I'd rather the controls themselves were updated and improved.

Well heres hoping a good product can become an exceptional one.

[StevenMcLean]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Hi Bob, I for one find your comments useful. Particularly for things that are subjective (such as user interfaces) hearing comments and opinions from varied people allow us to determine what works best for us (Us usually is our client). Bob do you have any screen shots you can post. You appear to have a design methodology, which is very important.

Thanks,

Steve

[rmcgaffic]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Steven,

Dave Mason appears happy with his form, so we're down to two candidates for a makeover. I just thought that working with a real life example would be most useful to forum members.

On the matter of color, let me make one observation: good software design is sexless. Yes, I have worked with women users who insisted on changing their screen color themes to pink or purple, but for the most part, you can't go wrong with blue, olive, tan, or gray.

Good design is not a beautification process as Dave is considering. It is an upfront activity to make form design easy and fast and yield an application that has a consistent appearance and function.

Bob McGaffic
Pittsburgh, PA

[Davidk]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Sure Bob... have a crack at it. There's an Activex control on the form so I'm not sure how it's going to behave for you... but you can just delete it if it gives you problems. This is an area I've always wrestled with. The main form name is frmClaims

[rmcgaffic]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Thanks, Dave for the zipped file. Let me play with it over the weekend.

Bob McGaffic
Pittsburgh, PA

[DaveM]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Bob,

I did not mean in any way to disrespect you or your work. I am sure for some it is much desired.

I have my application in 24 locations as a corporate purchase and many more as single user. This is without heavy advertising or hard work and done part time.

The last major app I worked on has sold over 7000 copies on a corporate level(last count). This one has a full staff working all day every day. I designed much of the interface on my own.

Sales production is the bottom line.

I have a Chinese lady with extensive knowledge in web and desktop design who will choose colors and ideas to make the new app appealing to the female eye. Female is important for this one since it will be mostly females using it. It also has to not offend for the few men(maybe 1 per 100 sales) who will also use it.

I think enough of asthetics to pursue this course. I am not into gradients very much though. speed and accuracy should never be compromised for beauty unless it is absolutely necessary.



.

[Davidk]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Here you go Bob... hope it's enough. For the Image per record, just point to any JPG on your system. I left those records out since they wouldn't relate to your system. This is just the tblClaims.dbf

[Pureeman]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

My original intention was to find how many of you have do not have a back ground in programming but create applications and generate an income using Alpha Five. A lot of this discussion seems to be applicable to my situation.
I am Dept manager for one of the largest senior care companies in the USA.
You would think that they would have some top programs in use. Nope! Many of our reports are created using elaborate spread sheets. One software package that has the first class looking Interface sucks in actual functionality. ( This software package created by an vendor giant in our industry)
As someone mentioned ......The people who pick the software don't have to use it. For example; Let's say I want to find how much aspirin is in use by a group of residents. The program kicks out reams of paper with all the medications for all the residents. The program does not allow changes or editing to the report writers. The program crashes and we have to backup constantly. The software vendor says that we may be adding to much information to the database. Are they kidding! We are talking about an average of 200 residents and their information. Okay, sorry I'm just frustrated.

I know that I can create a better applications using Alpha five. The true strength of Alpha is the ability and power that it allows the actual user of an application. I know my field and industry. So I can create a application that would truly work. Interfaces are great but I would take a basic looking application with functionality over a 30 tab spread sheet any day.
I'm however not sure how to approach the project. Do I try to market it on my own? How would I go about pricing.I'm up against some entrenched people who make the decisions but there is group that is pushing for something that actually works.

The IT people are concerned about tech support. They is no in house software development. All of our computers have Excel( Access too, but nobody uses it.) What if the program crashes etc. Alpha is pretty stable and I have a Run time version so they don't have to worry License issues.
My first though is to create an application that would blow away the spread sheets in terms of ease of use and functionality. Then maybe they would look to me to replace the other packages.
So what are some thoughts from you professionals out there?

[jjfcpa]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

The first thing I thought of is, entering data in spreadsheets is a PIA.

We have developed a number of applications that we use in-house that make our business much more manageable. One of the, is an invoicing program that keeps track of uses and all their upgrade history. I could never find one that kept track of all the information we needed.

In addition, it provides for bulk email to users so that we can send them vital upgrade or other information. Once again, there are ways to send bulk emails, but we couldn't find one to send bulk emails to over 5,000 users using our data.

There's a trade off when developing for yourself. On the plus side, you get exactly what you want. On the negative side, when something goes wrong, you only have yourself to look to for solutions.

There's one more thing you need to keep in mind. As soon as your users find out that you can make changes, it won't be long before the user requests start rolling in. Be prepared to say "not right now" a lot.

I wrote a very sophisticated Supercalc (I'm dating myself now) spreadsheet app for a client that had menus and did some consolidated reporting for them. It was about that time that I realized that designing a system around a relational database is a lot easier to maintain and enhance. I've never looked back since.

My two cents is to jump in and make your life easier. BTW, if your plan is to market this application to other users at some point in time, you need to make that decision up front and design it that way. Trying to retrofit it for commercial distribution is very, very time-consuming.

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

I am Dept manager for one of the largest senior care companies in the USA.
You would think that they would have some top programs in use. Nope!

Funny! ;)

The program kicks out reams of paper with all the medications for all the residents. The program does not allow changes or editing to the report writers. The program crashes and we have to backup constantly. The software vendor says that we may be adding to much information to the database. Are they kidding! We are talking about an average of 200 residents and their information. Okay, sorry I'm just frustrated.

Even funnier! :) Don't the stupid end-users know that you're not supposed to add too much information?

The IT people are concerned about tech support. They is no in house software development. All of our computers have Excel( Access too, but nobody uses it.) What if the program crashes etc. Alpha is pretty stable and I have a Run time version so they don't have to worry License issues.
My first though is to create an application that would blow away the spread sheets in terms of ease of use and functionality. Then maybe they would look to me to replace the other packages.
So what are some thoughts from you professionals out there?

Doing a wholesale conversion as you are planning is a pretty daunting task. But that's what makes it fun. You have the right idea. Build one small piece first and introduce it into the system. Then build up gradually additional components or modules. As far as big time marketing goes, build first, market later. But jjfcpa is right. It's much harder to build a generic system for others than a custom system for yourself.

[Pureeman]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Thanks for the suggestions. The module by module seems to be the best approach.
I picked up Jeff Johnson's GUI Bloopers which has helped me with designing some interfaces. I guess I'm interface and database junkie. I am constantly looking at applications and trying to figure how they work. How would I create a similar application? From gas stations to grocery store automated checkouts, I am truly addicted!