Web Application UI Guidelines?

Tom Davies asks: "Every GUI platform has a document which describes the conventions developers should use when building GUIs with that toolset. There are also lots of good resources for Web site usability (e.g. Jakob Nielsen's useit.com). But what about web -applications-? I am developing an intranet application which is aimed at people who use it every day, not those who stumble on a web site and need to be able to use it immediately. It can have a higher learning curve, but must deliver more 'client/server like' usability. Are there any sites/books which address how to make HTML GUIs for applications?"

Comments

2nd Post! A few resources for you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Check here, though admittedly you have to wonder about the GUI skills of someone who makes you click "Next" 10 times to read their thoughts. It's a decent paper, though, and cites numerous references.

And here is a decent but damned expensive book on the topic. Fortunately, a couple of the P2P application developers are good at GUI design and have made it quite easy to locate this book in PDF eBook format...

Re:Simple answer: Don't

[yancey]

Traditional web applications are pretty clunky, but you should look into Mozilla as a potential application toolkit.

The Mozilla browser is arguably the most complex program created so far using Mozilla and it compares favorably to a native application when it comes to functionality.

Some people will argue that Mozilla doesn't perform well, but apps created with Mozilla are portable and could be used on Windows, Macintosh, or Unix systems (and several operating systems that you would never expect). The cool part is that your code would not have to change.. it's the same for every platform.

Your web development skills will come in handy, because XML, CSS, and JavaScript are what you use to create applications in Mozilla. There is no compiler required.. just text editors!

Check out the tutorial on the XULPlanet website.

http://www.xulplanet.com/

A new O'Reilly book that gives an overview of creating apps with Mozilla was created with the Open Publication License and is online as well as available from O'Reilly.

http://books.mozdev.org/

Other sites to visit...

http://www.oreillynet.com/mozilla/

http://www.mozdev.org/

Mozilla, Perhaps?

[rubinson]

Ironically (in the Alanis Morissette sense of the term), Slashdot just posted a pretty positive review of Creating Applications with Mozilla. Perhaps that may be what you're looking for?

Some stateful, something tasteful

[fooguy]

My suggestion, if you're hell bent on a web application, it to consider perhaps a Java Applet. At least with an applet you can use Swing and AWT widgets for designing your app, and Applets provide some modicum of security. You would also be able to maintain a stateful connection, meaning people could still run this with just a browser, but also have most of the benifits of a C/S paradigm.

As for design, my thought is that standard GUI design rules (for the most part) apply. Consistant look and feel across screens (so the "add record" button isn't in a different place on every screen), clean asthetics (color, fonts, separation), meaningful labels (book title capitalization), no Peoplesoft-esque nested scroll bars, logical grouping of similar items, etc. Without knowing what your designing it's hard to say for sure, but if you've ever designed a GUI that didn't make users have seizures or get motion sick, most of those same rules apply.