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Web Forms

Designing Web sites needs careful thinking and a lot of planning.
The most important thing is to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.

Users are Scanners

A typical visitor will NOT read the entire content of your Web page!
No matter how much useful information you put into a Web page, a visitor will only spend a few seconds scanning it before they decide whether to leave or to stay.
Be sure to make your point in the very first sentence of the page! After that, try to keep the user occupied with short paragraphs, and new headers down the page.

Less is More

• Keep the paragraphs as short as possible.
• Keep the pages as short as possible.
• Keep the chapters as short as possible.
• Use a lot of space! Pages overloaded with text will kill your audience.
• If you have a lot to say, break your information into smaller chunks and place it on different pages!

Navigation

Create a consistent navigation structure that is used by all the pages in your Web site.

• Don’t use hyperlinks inside paragraphs, to send visitors to every page of your Web. This will destroy the feeling of a consistent navigation structure.
• If you must use hyperlinks, add them to the bottom of a paragraph, or to the menu.

Download Speed

Test your web pages over a low-speed modem connection. If your pages take a long time to download, consider removing graphic or multimedia content.

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Back office Design

Designing for Usability

Input Design Objectives

• Make the user’s tasks easier to perform with the I.S than without it
  • It should be intuitively obvious to the most casual user
  • Design the interface to meet the user’s needs
  • Adapt technology to the user instead of forcing the user to adapt to the technology
  • Meet time and resource allocations
  • Get it out on time and under budget
• The quality of system input determines the quality of system output.
• Well-designed input objectives:
  • Effectiveness
  • Accuracy
  • Ease of use
  • Consistency
  • Simplicity
  • Attractiveness.
• Control the amount of input: minimize the quantity of data for input and avoid duplication in data collection and data entry.
• Avoid processing delays due to extra steps in data preparation and entry, by designing appropriate procedures, source documents, turnaround documents and data entry methods.
• Avoid errors in data: ensure accuracy through controlling the amount of input, designing forms that ensure accurate completion, selecting the appropriate data entry medium, and using input validation techniques.

GUI (Graphical User Interface) Design Considerations

• Icons are often intuitive
• Consistent use of icons is important
• Size of icons & text is important
• Number of icons – not too many
• Use of color – not too much

Form Design

• make forms easy to fill out: to reduce errors, speed completion, facilitate data entry
  • Form flow (top to bottom, left to right)
  • Form sections: logical grouping of info
  • Form captions: Captions tell the person completing the form what to put on a blank line, space, or box.
• ensure that forms meet the intended purpose: effectiveness
• assure accurate completion: (row & column totals)
• keep forms attractive: uncluttered, enough space to fill, fonts and line weights to separate categories
• ask each item of data only once

Input Validation

Checking the transaction

to ensure that the transaction is not invalid (incomplete, unauthorized, out of order)

• Batch Controls: batch size, batch count, batch totals
• Transaction Validation:
  • Inventory system should not accept the addition of a new item with the same stock number as an existing one.
  • Transactions having no relation to the system may also be submitted (payroll transaction to inventory system)
  • Acceptable input may be submitted by an unauthorized user
• Sequence Tests: serial numbers to identify
  • Missing items (cheques)
  • The order of transactions (deposits vs. withdrawals)
• Completeness Tests: automatic guidance in systems; keyboard locks or systems waits indefinitely until correct data are entered.