INTRODUCTION AND RELEVANT INFORMATION
I am software developer who must create application for managing contracts. I am very "clumsy" regarding UX, so I am not satisfied with what I have made so far.
Here is the image of the relevant part of the form I need your help with:
Let me clarify even further:
Red rectangle contains basic stuff for contract:
- Name of the investor
- Date of signing
- Name of the person who signed it
- Deadline
- etc...
Brown rectangle contains information about:
- Total price
- Currency
- Price without VAT
- Price with VAT
- etc...
Blue rectangle contains information about time order of payment -> has investor payed up front and so on. As you can see, total number of payment info is unknown. That is why I made controls at the bottom that accept data for one row in listview, and added buttons in the middle so user can add data into listview or edit/delete existing rows. If you can suggest improvement/better solution for this design I will consider it, but at the moment this is not my biggest concern.
Green rectangle is about subject of the contract ( this is the only way know how to translate it to English -> English is not my native ).
Purple rectangle deals with PDF attachments. User should be able to add, delete, open attachment. There are two types of files to attach -> contract and a bid ( again, sorry for "clumsy" translation -> English is not my native ).
PROBLEM
Although my window barely fits into screen, I find this design to be very bad. Reading through similar questions here, and reading through answers to my other questions, I think this form will cause big cognitive overload for the user.
MY EFFORTS TO SOLVE THIS
I have decided to break this form into multiple tabs. For now I have 2 tabs -> first has controls from red, green and purple rectangles, while second has controls from the blue and brown rectangle.
Although this saves space, I believe that my inexperience and ignorance are preventing me to optimize UI even more efficiently.
QUESTIONS
- What is the most efficient solution for breaking this UI into multiple tabs?
- I need to preserve space, that is why I thought of using tab control will be the best solution. If you can suggest alternative approach I will consider that too.
If further info or clarifications are required, please leave a comment and I will respond as quickly as possible.
Thank you. Best regards and Happy New Year.