1. 13-1 © Prentice Hall, 2007 Chapter 13: Designing the Human Interface Object-Oriented Systems Analysis and Design Joey F. George, Dinesh Batra, Joseph S. Valacich, Jeffrey A. Hoffer

2. Chapter 13 13-2 © Prentice Hall, 2007 Chapter Objectives – Explain form and report design, and apply general guidelines for formatting forms and reports. – Explain effective text, table, and list formatting. – Explain interface and dialogue design, and apply general guidelines for designing interfaces and dialogues. – Explain common Web layout design errors, and common errors in developing Web interfaces. – Design Web Interfaces using Coldfusion

3. Chapter 13 13-3 © Prentice Hall, 2007

4. Chapter 13 13-4 © Prentice Hall, 2007 Fundamental Questions when Designing Forms and Reports 1. Who will use the form or report? 2. What is the purpose of the form or report? 3. When is the form or report needed and used? 4. Where does the form or report need to be delivered and used? 5. How many people need to use or view the form or report?

5. Chapter 13 13-5 © Prentice Hall, 2007 Types of Reports Scheduled Reports – Predefined interval presentation of routine information Key-Indicator Reports – Summarize critical information on a recurring basis Exception Reports – Highlight data outside normal operating range Drill Down Reports – Provide details of summaries from key-indicator or exception reports Ad Hoc Reports – Unplanned information requsts for nonroutine decisions

6. Chapter 13 13-6 © Prentice Hall, 2007 Guidelines for Displaying Text Case – mixed upper/lower case, using conventional punctuation Spacing – double-space if possible, otherwise insert blank lines between paragraphs Justification – left-justfiy with ragged right margins Hyphenation – no hyphenation of words between lines Abbreviations/Acronyms – only when commonly understood and significantly shorter than actual words

7. Chapter 13 13-7 © Prentice Hall, 2007

8. Chapter 13 13-8 © Prentice Hall, 2007 Interface/Dialogue Design – Layout (of widgets, text, and table data) – Structuring data entry (tab order) – Controlling data input (validation and format controls) – Feedback (prompting, status, warning, and error messages) – Dialogue sequencing

9. Chapter 13 13-9 © Prentice Hall, 2007 Common Areas in Forms Header information Sequence and time-related information Instruction or formatting information Body or data details Totals or data summary Authorization or signatures Coments

10. Chapter 13 13-10 © Prentice Hall, 2007 A typical interface/dialogue design specification: Similar to form design, but includes multiple forms and dialogue sequence specifications

11. Chapter 13 13-11 © Prentice Hall, 2007

12. Chapter 13 13-12 © Prentice Hall, 2007 Feedback Messages Status information – keep user informed of what’s going on, helpful when user has to wait for response Prompting cues – tell user when input is needed, and how to provide the input Warning or Error – informs user that something is wrong, either with data entry or system operation

13. Chapter 13 13-13 © Prentice Hall, 2007 Guidelines for Dialogue Design – Consistency – Allow sequence, shortcuts, and reversals in navigation – Frequent feedback – Logical grouping and sequencing of diagrams, with beginning, middle, and end – Comprehensive error handling – Maximize ease and control of use

14. Chapter 13 13-14 © Prentice Hall, 2007 Designing Web Layouts For e-commerce applications, web form is the contact point between customer and company  good design is very important But, rapid proliferation of web sites without corresponding increase in UI experts Possible solutions: – Make Web design easy enough for non-UI experts – Train more people in Web design – Tolerate poorly-designed Web layouts

15. Chapter 13 13-15 © Prentice Hall, 2007

16. Chapter 13 Design Web Interfaces Design web interfaces using coldfusion with Dreamweaver and Access - Create one database file (may only work for Access 2003.mdb file format). - In the Home directory (H:), create a directory called “database”, then copy database file here. - Create data source and data name using Argus - Create html files with coldfusion and put these files in the Web directory (I:) 13-16 © Prentice Hall, 2007