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...

Intranet Privacy

[tedDancin]

I've come across a recent top-list of intranets here in Australia, and had to dismiss it as a joke. Every intranet that I've ever built/worked on has had extremely strict confidentiality clauses etc etc attached with it. It's just the fact that companies don't want a smidgeon of their information out in the open (even to a rating company).

I think software engineering design guidelines would be more appropriate for a web application that anything Jakob Nielsen could come up with. As you know, web applications and websites are two totally different breeds of fish.

Simple answer: Don't

[Twylite]

Ask Google about ui design guidelines for web applications. IBM's Ease Of Use site comes up tops.

But, IMHO, you need to examine your choice of development platform (i.e. "web application") and your methodology. If you have already decided on your platform before determining UI requirements, you have issues.

Quite simply a web application can't deliver the same level of user interaction as a traditional C/S application. HTML (even with JavaScript) does not have a rich widget set for building UIs, which causes most intranet applications to have non-obvious even tedious solutions to common UI problems.

One of the few places where HTML excels is in displaying reports and non-interactive tables. By contrast, it is poorest at interactive tables and dynamic filtering.

Some examples: many applications with long lists have a facility to search-as-you-type, either focused on the list or in a text field adjacent to the list; applications with filter or present options based on another selection draw their data on demand in a C/S model, but in a web application must use submit-and-update or multidimensional JavaScript arrays and transfer ALL values to the client on the first request. Simple elements like menus and toolbars are difficult to get right and keep consistent in a web application.

Re:Simple answer: Don't

[elfkicker]

Agreed.

I've been playing around with Mozilla's XUL a bit which overcomes alot of these problems. It's got a fairly good widget set and I'm sure we'll see it improve quickly. I'm not sure I'd want to invest in a whole intranet worth of XUL, but it might be good for some smaller applications if you can get your users using Moz. I wonder if anyone's thought of doing an IE plugin for XUL apps... prolly not much demand for it, but I hope that changes.

Re:Simple answer: Don't

[Twylite]

But why do you want a web based application (with or without Java applets) to begin with? The Web provided a common platform, ease of delivery to remote clients (and by extension ease of maintenance), and an easy display language for simple presentations.

The value proposition of the Web is now significantly reduced in light of alternative technologies. Java, Tcl, Python, Perl and numerous others provide a common platform. Most either provide or easily permit a stub architecture for downloading the application from the server on the fly, negating the traditional remote maintenance problems of C/S software. Visual "builder" IDEs are commonplace.

These languages offer a powerful set of GUI widgets which beat DHTML on interactive use, and have proper RPC mechanisms (with several standards to choose from) rather than the submit-and-retrieve model that limits web applications.

Where a web application can use DHTML and XML to transfer a table, a Java application can address the remote table object as if it were local, or transfer the object to the client implicitly, at no development cost.

Re:Simple answer: Don't

[larien]

I guess the advantage in most cases is the ease of development based on how much is already handled in the HTTP protocol (and SSL for encryption). This allows a faster development cycle as you don't have to worry about creating widgets (just use form/table/input tags). The other advantage is that 99.9% of desktop workstations have a web browser installed, but not all will allow the remote installation of software (a good thing, IMHO) due to security settings.

I guess that currently, there's enough expertise in delivering web apps that it's a good proposition. Whether that paradigm will continue in the longer term or not is a different matter, and time will tell as to the long term usage of web apps.

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.

Web desktops?

[cr0sh]

Something that I remember seeing a while back, then it just up and died, with no fanfare - was web "desktops". Does anybody here remember the desktops that showed up in a browser, and used a combination of javascript, html, possibly css, and cgi to create a windowing desktop within the browser?

Today, such applications are much easier, and with Mozilla at least (XUL, etc), should become more common.

My question is, what happened to the early stuff? Some of it was amazing and fascinating, even if a bit crufty. I assume it died off because it just didn't catch on, or it really wasn't up to the task of better (read: full blown) applications. But the idea of having a remotely accessible desktop anywhere, web based, etc - seemed interesting (and yes, I know about VNC, as well as X)...