I'm getting ready to publish a page of real-time stock-option data. Problem is I'm not so sure any more of many controls that I used to be in love with.
The first of these now-doggish controls is the pair that lets the user refresh the table of option numbers.
In the manual-refresh mode:
http://www.sellmycalls.com/pics/so-man.png
the user just presses the refresh (left) button to see new stuff. He can invoke auto-refresh mode by pressing the stopwatch (right) button, which also (by repeated presses) selects the refresh interval.
In the auto-refresh mode:
http://www.sellmycalls.com/pics/so-auto.png
the obvious thing happens; plus the stopwatch image tells him how much relative time is left until the next automatic refresh. He can press the stopwatch image repeatedly to change the refresh interval; or to re-enter manual mode. He can press refresh any time to over-ride auto and refresh manually.
This whole mechanism now seems awfully clunky to me. The goals of this pair of controls are:
- let user toggle between manual and automatic modes
- let user select the auto-mode refresh interval: 10 to 120 seconds
- show the user his current auto/manual mode and his auto-refresh interval
Can anyone suggest a cooler, more user-satisfying way to present these ideas?