Designing Interfaces

PHYSICAL STRUCTURE

Once you've come up with the beginnings of a design, you have to translate it into a physical structure of windows, pages, and controls. That's one of the first aspects of an application that people perceive, especially on the desktop, which can host all the types of window arrangements described here.

I've heard this debate many times before: should an application use multiple windows, a single window with several tiled panes, or one window whose content "swaps out" like a web page? Should it use some combination thereof? See Figure 2-6.

You may already know by now which to use—the technology you're using often will set your course. Handhelds, cell phones, and most other consumer electronics simply don't give you the option for multiple windows or multiple panes. Even if you could, it's a bad idea, simply because users will find it too hard to navigate without a mouse.

Desktop software and large-screen web applications give you more choices. There aren't any hard-and-fast rules for determining what's best for any given design, but the sections that follow provide some guidelines. Before you decide, analyze the kinds of tasks your users will perform—especially whether they need to work in two or more UI areas at the same time. Do they need to refer to panel A while editing something in panel B? Do they need to compare A and B side-by-side? Do they need to keep panel A in view at all times to monitor something? Let your understanding of users' tasks drive your decisions. ...