program installed on user's machine as opposed to a program that runs remotely and is accessed via an internet browser.
9
votes
6answers
396 views
What to put in the About box?
I wonder what useful stuff one can put in an About box in a Mac OS X program.
Most basic the About box displays
Program icon
Program name
Version number
Copyright
More sophisticated ones ...
3
votes
2answers
345 views
How should I design an MS Access application for Excel users?
I work for a public health study, and I have been asked to help manage the workflow for an upcoming project. We will be choosing subjects, tracking our contact with them, interviewing them, placing ...
5
votes
2answers
358 views
What affords scrolling?
Besides the obvious:
Scrollbar
Touch interfaces (especially mobile ones)
A sign saying "You can scroll here you know!"
This for a desktop application.
1
vote
3answers
248 views
An intuitive way to present a Login interface
I'm designing a windowed application. When the application starts up the user needs to be presented with a Login interface. The initial (and minimum) window size is 800x600. A header of height 42 ...
2
votes
3answers
650 views
Alternate to nested tab controls for a windows desktop application
I develop a complex LOB windows desktop application. Right now it has only one feature say A. All menu and toolbar is for A. You can open multiple document related to feature A, each within a Tab ...
5
votes
6answers
344 views
Rough and fine adjustments with horizontal slider
I'm used to scrolling being thrice as effective as arrowkeys in Firefox.
I want to give the ability to quickly and roughly adjust values by hovering over the slider and using the scrollwheel. Finest ...
24
votes
6answers
984 views
What is the best way to get users to discover and learn keyboard shortcuts
In a mouse driven desktop application, with a ribbon style interface and which has no menubar, what is the best way for users to learn about the shortcuts and accelerators which can help a user work ...
5
votes
3answers
294 views
Menu organization : conventional or domain-specific?
I'm building a desktop application that is a tool to mount some very domain-specific graphic structures that in the tool's context are called "sequences" (it's not important here I guess).
To help ...
11
votes
5answers
464 views
What's the best way to get reliable user feedback on a desktop application?
Lately my company has been trying to figure out the best way to get reliable feedback from a our users. It seems that we hear things from our power users and mostly from those who have trouble, but ...
2
votes
2answers
149 views
With straighten, do we really need rotate?
Related to Combining rotation and straightening of images.
Rotate: Grab a corner, drag it to its new location, rest of image follows.
Straighten: Either click-drag-drop a line on a horizon, or click ...
1
vote
2answers
93 views
Combining rotation and straightening of images
Topic may seem weird as the two terms seem to mean the same.
Clarification:
Rotation: The typical way of grabbing a corner and pulling in the direction you want the image to rotate.
Straightening: ...
2
votes
3answers
224 views
how to control user focus?
i am currently developing a prototype for a piece of software. One of the most important things is to show the client, how the UI will look like, so I am making real wpf windows with no real data ...
4
votes
2answers
449 views
User interface for a “mapping” table
I have the following problem. I need to provide an interface for users inserting/editing "mappings" in a database.
A mapping is a record as such:
[Field A, Field B, Field C] --maps to--> [Field X, ...
5
votes
3answers
305 views
Managing multiple windows in one application
I am developing a desktop application to create, arrange and read blocs of sounds, via a grid interface like this :
Each bloc of sound is of different nature and has its own panel to control its ...
2
votes
3answers
259 views
In a desktop application, what are best practise methods to provide a menu of functions
I have a .NET Winforms application that hosts controls to provide different areas of functionality.
My normal method in providing a menu to switch between these controls has been a TreeView or a List ...
17
votes
3answers
521 views
How to indicate a table is missing rows that have been filtered out?
Do you know of any aesthetically-pleasing and effective ways of indicating that a table's contents have been filtered, without the filter information getting in the way?
Some background on my ...
8
votes
5answers
462 views
What factors should I consider when [re]designing a home page / home screen?
I've been considering redesigning the home screen for the next release in a desktop application I'm responsible for. This could probably be thought of as a brand-new design, since I have virtually no ...
4
votes
6answers
336 views
Is it good to make different website for Desktop and iPad?
Is it good to make different website for Desktop and iPad? or same site is more better?
4
votes
4answers
157 views
Why do programs ask the user to configure auto-update when first run?
Yesterday, I was installing F.lux on my Mac (cool-looking program by the way), and when I ran it, it asked me if I wanted the program to automatically update. How am I (or any average user) supposed ...
10
votes
4answers
856 views
Should Dialogs be avoided in modern applications?
I have used a few dialogs on the last system I designed. The application was a business application with many database tables and I used many datagrids to show data. It was common that I placed a ...
4
votes
3answers
301 views
Multiple instances of a Property Editor
I am designing an application in which several kind of user objects have properties. When clicking an object, the properties of the object would be shown in a pane similar to the Properties pane in ...
4
votes
2answers
2k views
CRUD Desktop Best Practice
I always use this design for CRUD Desktop Form:
Is it a good design for a CRUD Form? Do you have any suggestions for a better crud desktop form?
0
votes
1answer
176 views
I'm developing a dark application UI, how do I make sure I access / style all possible components?
I want to make sure I style all the relevant tags so that I don't end up with a broken UI which will be ugly or difficult to use.
EDIT: I'm hope to produce a .QSS file (Qt4) that can be loaded into ...
1
vote
1answer
318 views
does this design have a good usability?
i asked this question on stackoverflow and has been redirected here. sorry about cross-posting.
i am writing a financial application and i need to write a specialized file open dialog for the user to ...
3
votes
2answers
94 views
How can I make a preference window that is good at tweaking theming settings?
I'm working on a file manager where the user can change text properties, the same way as in programming editors: font-family, font-size, antialiasing, background-color, foreground-color.
Currently I ...
6
votes
7answers
408 views
Why do most websites have a custom skin where as most desktop applications don't?
You rarely ever see websites with a UI that has the same skin as the operating system. But, desktop application rarely ever change skins. Why do custom-skins work so well for webpages but not for ...
8
votes
1answer
345 views
Where should the “preferences” item go in a desktop application?
I find that the "preferences" menu item is always in a different place, and often under an arbitrary name which always makes it a pain to locate unless you're already familiar with the software.
I ...
5
votes
2answers
485 views
Best layout for lots of user input elements?
I have an application that presents a question/answer form to the user. It was mandated that the form look as close to the paper form as possible. The paper form was built in a spreadsheet as two ...
