[DUG] Graphical User Interface Design

[John Bird]

Well that's the start of a big discussion!

Quickly off the top of my head:

Its good to use someone with an eye for visual composition as in
photography/painting to look over the layout of the screen.

Use the alignment stuff supplied in the IDE

Make some overall design decisions - eg I tend to put prompts and info in
black, and all client data in Navy as its an obvious cue to the user which
is "their" stuff.

The most useful single component is the XP Manifest and the D2007 Vista
equivalent, all the standard VCL components look up to date and slick then.

I often have groups of components set visible:=false until needed -
simplifies the screen.

*and*  sit quietly and watch users using it - that is always a lesson on
what you thought was obvious that confuses them!

John Bird

Hey guys,

Just about to update one of our main apps and thinking about just 
rebuilding it from the ground up, especially the gui side of it. The 
original one wasn't to bad, but looking at other programs there is some 
very nice looking applications out there. Now I have the TMS component 
set and there are some very nice graphical components in there - but I 
don't want the program to be overwhelming (picture someone that finds 
the transitions in a slide show app for the first time!) but also don't 
want it to look like something from windows 3.1

End of the day it comes down to the usability for the user and making 
everything as easy and logical for them to use, but also want it to look 
appealing.

So what steps, guidelines, approach do you take when designing an 
application.

:-)
Cheers
Nick
 
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