Questions about how a system informs the user its state or status. How and what a system tells a user about the state of the system can have a meaningful impact on the system's usability.
4
votes
5answers
169 views
How can the mode of a car's transmission be made more clear?
In a car, if you press the accelerator it can do one of three things:
make the car go forward.
make the car go backward.
not move the car at all.
The result depends on what gear the car is in, but ...
6
votes
4answers
160 views
Partial success message when deleting items
In one of our applications, the user can select multiple items and delete as many of them as they wish in single click.
However, while processing this request there is some validation and ...
7
votes
2answers
83 views
Best way to distinguish between completed and in-progress items in data grid
I have a data grid of items, and each item basically has two states: in-progress or completed. What's an elegant, concise way to make a visual distinction between the two states? For the time being, ...
6
votes
2answers
130 views
Multipart progress / status bar colours
I am working on an application that needs to show users their currents status / progress in performing a task on a number of items. There are three states that each item can have:
New (blue) - ...
9
votes
8answers
429 views
How to best show connectivity
I am writing an app which heavily depends on having a connection to the host.
The app works fine with no connection it just doesn't send anything up or down.
Because it's a business type app the ...
1
vote
1answer
138 views
Status Bars and their Nature [closed]
I want to know more about status bars, what are they useful for and what is the appropriate way to use them.
I've noticed the following:
Status Bars are always located at the bottom with the most ...
8
votes
3answers
191 views
Messaging a user success and error messages at the same time
There's a screen in our app where the user performs a batch action to list some products on their online store. In the UI, they select the products from a list and click a 'list' button.
During this ...
7
votes
5answers
319 views
Design Pattern recommendations for application assignment visualisation
I'm sure there must be some terminology for what I require unfortunately I'm not sure what it is. Anyway, let me try to explain, I have a selection of applications for courses that are to be assigned ...
2
votes
2answers
68 views
Do we need to indicate that an activity that ran very quickly didn't error-out immediately?
We have a system that has a few maintenance activities that run very quickly (less than a second). Problem is, when users look at the log file for the system, seeing an activity that ran for 0 seconds ...
1
vote
2answers
241 views
Growl notifications in web application
The web application I work on includes long running tasks that show progress in the browser. While a task is running the user can browser and use the rest of the application. Would a pattern like ...
4
votes
1answer
111 views
How can I communicate linear progress through a series of states with color?
I'm trying to help visualize a portfolio of projects.
They start off in the first state with some basic details, then they're reviewed, fully defined, and finally, work is begun.
Right now, the ...
2
votes
1answer
164 views
System status and availability best practice
What are is considered best practice (layout, age of information, level of detail, etc.) for UX guidelines when creating system status and availability page(s)?
Below are links from major companies ...
2
votes
1answer
82 views
How to report outcomes of a background task to users?
I have an application that in essence takes files and imports them into a database. As these files can take a while to import, we have a queue of these tasks that get run one-by-one. As such, each ...
6
votes
3answers
145 views
Showing the status of an action on a button
I have an application that can synchronize content between a website and a social network.
with a button you can turn on and off the synchronization.
the user needs to see the status (sync on or off) ...
2
votes
3answers
124 views
How do I best communicate a (chat) status of “application installed on phone”?
I'm looking to communicate, to a chat user, that their chat partner is available in the meaning of "has installed a chat application on their smartphone".
Marking the chat partner as "online" or ...
2
votes
1answer
136 views
Simplicity vs. Conditional Views
I'm working on a SAAS platform. All users must login, so user ID, location, affiliation etc. are almost always known. The platform also has substantial game components, recording user progress and ...
5
votes
2answers
325 views
designing an “online / offline ” status indicator and examples of existing ones with good practice
Im trying to integrate an online / offline User Interface element in my application ( web app) I have some trouble getting it matches with the other user interface elements, and wonder what you guys ...
4
votes
4answers
180 views
How to indicate a user is a full member or just a regular member?
I'm looking for some nice ways to visualize whether a user is a full member or a regular member. Assume a Facebook-style website with full membership option.
The profiles will be displayed as blocks ...
3
votes
4answers
259 views
Is there a better way to show 3 states of 2 types of data?
We are writing a web-based testing application where the user (teacher) can't move on to the next step in the process until all students (a young age group) have completed 2 separate tests. First all ...
4
votes
2answers
502 views
UI pattern for showing progress of concurrent tasks?
This is in the context of a desktop application.
Typically if you fire off a request to some back end server then it is nice to be able to show some sort of progress indicator in say the status with ...
2
votes
1answer
149 views
Number of UX professionals in the UK
I am having big trouble getting hold of an estimation of the number of UX professionals in the UK. Tried the UKPA, ONS, Data.gov etc but no trace of relevant data.
Is anyone able to guide me towards ...
3
votes
8answers
237 views
Which symbols to show availability status for online gaming ? [closed]
I'm redesigning the UI of an online multiplayer game where the red and green colors already carry important meanings, thus they can't be used along with the orange to denote users who are "actively ...
