UI Client Notification
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Hopefully I'm posting this in the right place, so please direct me if not. I'm working on a Silverlight UI right now where occasionally a user can edit a widget in an object, and other times he/she can't (and it's not readily clear in the main object when these times are). Space is also limited in this part of the app. To my knowledge, there are two ways to handle this:
- The good ole' MessageBox stating "Sorry, can't edit this due to blah blah blah." I hate the MessageBox in general, and this seems dated IMHO.
- Enable/disable the edit button as needed, but this doesn't give any feedback as to why he/she can't edit it. I've thought about a tooltip for this purpose, but a significant percentage of end users aren't all that computer literate, so I doubt they'd find it except via sheer luck.
Short of preventing end users from using the system or requiring competency tests, any thoughts from the herd?
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Hopefully I'm posting this in the right place, so please direct me if not. I'm working on a Silverlight UI right now where occasionally a user can edit a widget in an object, and other times he/she can't (and it's not readily clear in the main object when these times are). Space is also limited in this part of the app. To my knowledge, there are two ways to handle this:
- The good ole' MessageBox stating "Sorry, can't edit this due to blah blah blah." I hate the MessageBox in general, and this seems dated IMHO.
- Enable/disable the edit button as needed, but this doesn't give any feedback as to why he/she can't edit it. I've thought about a tooltip for this purpose, but a significant percentage of end users aren't all that computer literate, so I doubt they'd find it except via sheer luck.
Short of preventing end users from using the system or requiring competency tests, any thoughts from the herd?
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Thanks; I wasn't sure if it should go there or not since it's not really a SL-specific question, more a 'how do others handle this type of thing' scenario.
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Hopefully I'm posting this in the right place, so please direct me if not. I'm working on a Silverlight UI right now where occasionally a user can edit a widget in an object, and other times he/she can't (and it's not readily clear in the main object when these times are). Space is also limited in this part of the app. To my knowledge, there are two ways to handle this:
- The good ole' MessageBox stating "Sorry, can't edit this due to blah blah blah." I hate the MessageBox in general, and this seems dated IMHO.
- Enable/disable the edit button as needed, but this doesn't give any feedback as to why he/she can't edit it. I've thought about a tooltip for this purpose, but a significant percentage of end users aren't all that computer literate, so I doubt they'd find it except via sheer luck.
Short of preventing end users from using the system or requiring competency tests, any thoughts from the herd?
How about showing a tiny 'lock' icon after the widget name, if the icon is locked lock, user cant edit it. and if the icon is unlocked lock they can edit it. you can then display tooltip on the locked lock icon, about why they cant edit it. to me this is obvious, I don't think user will get confused. if possible, try this and then invite some of your colleges to test the app, while you watch them over their shoulder.
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How about showing a tiny 'lock' icon after the widget name, if the icon is locked lock, user cant edit it. and if the icon is unlocked lock they can edit it. you can then display tooltip on the locked lock icon, about why they cant edit it. to me this is obvious, I don't think user will get confused. if possible, try this and then invite some of your colleges to test the app, while you watch them over their shoulder.
We actually tried something similar to that (using a locked/unlocked icon), and they just didn't get it. That could have been due to the layout, however. I'm contemplating displaying a '?' icon next to it if it's not enabled, and then they can hover/click/whatever on it, and we'll do a callout or something explaining why it can't be edited.
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Hopefully I'm posting this in the right place, so please direct me if not. I'm working on a Silverlight UI right now where occasionally a user can edit a widget in an object, and other times he/she can't (and it's not readily clear in the main object when these times are). Space is also limited in this part of the app. To my knowledge, there are two ways to handle this:
- The good ole' MessageBox stating "Sorry, can't edit this due to blah blah blah." I hate the MessageBox in general, and this seems dated IMHO.
- Enable/disable the edit button as needed, but this doesn't give any feedback as to why he/she can't edit it. I've thought about a tooltip for this purpose, but a significant percentage of end users aren't all that computer literate, so I doubt they'd find it except via sheer luck.
Short of preventing end users from using the system or requiring competency tests, any thoughts from the herd?
IndifferentDisdain wrote:
I've thought about a tooltip for this purpose, but a significant percentage of end users aren't all that computer literate, so I doubt they'd find it except via sheer luck.
It's not "sheer luck"; discoverability is a cool subject, and without it we'd still be supplying manuals to the users, explaining how to operate it. What would a user do when he wants to edit the widget? Well, move the mouse over the button; ideal moment indeed for a tooltip. And no, it's not like they won't try to click it. Cutest solution would be indeed to include a status-indicator icon on the button itself. It won't eat much space, but might look annoying when disabled. Last option, which would make the app behave in a non-standard way would be to NOT disable the button, but to "grey" the caption-text when it's supposed to be inactive, and give a nice lengthy explanation when they click it.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: if you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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We actually tried something similar to that (using a locked/unlocked icon), and they just didn't get it. That could have been due to the layout, however. I'm contemplating displaying a '?' icon next to it if it's not enabled, and then they can hover/click/whatever on it, and we'll do a callout or something explaining why it can't be edited.
OK... how about changing those icons to 'happy' and 'sad' smiley. I bet users will want to know why those faces are sad, and when they hover tell them why, guarantee they will remember this next time... plus you can say you have social integration with your app. :-D
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OK... how about changing those icons to 'happy' and 'sad' smiley. I bet users will want to know why those faces are sad, and when they hover tell them why, guarantee they will remember this next time... plus you can say you have social integration with your app. :-D
Nice; is it sad that I'm actually contemplating that?:~
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Nice; is it sad that I'm actually contemplating that?:~
Actually if you take example of Sharepoint or ASP.Net WepParts framework (basically sharepoint), I have used it in one of my project for Dashboard. then it requires users to change the
Display Modeof the dashboard fromViewtoEdit. so I followed their flow, and put an Edit button on the Top to change the mode to edit (so that they can change it, arrange it), once they hit Save it will return into View mode. After this implementation, I got lot of feedback about user forget to change it to Edit mode and get frustrated that they can edit the dashboard. so I change the code so that the dashboard remain in the edit mode. After that, I got complains about how they moved/edit widgets by accident. (lot of people minimized the widget and then complain about it disappearing without notice.) and after few months, all this stupid complains stopped. so sometimes you just have to educate them. there is no other way. :)