Issue: The layout of the screens will strongly effect
how the program is perceived by the user. A complex screen design
will be confusing to the user, but at the same time, there is a lot of
information which must be presented to the user.
Discussion: To begin, I decided to show the selected
Season and League name at the top of each screen or frame. This allows
the user to verify that they are using the desired season and
league. Since this program is designed to handle multiple seasons
and leagues, this is important information to the user. There are
actions to be taken on many edit screens, such as adding a new item,
removing an item, going to the next item, going to the previous item,
saving the changes made, and cancelling out of the screen. There
are more, but you get the idea. I decided to make these actions be
implemented with buttons along the right side of the screen. The
right side of the screen was arbitrary,
because it could have been the left side or even the bottom of the
screen. The bottom was rejected because there are many actions,
and they might not all fit at the bottom of the screen. The top of
the screen was rejected because the season/league information is there,
and it might get confusing, especially if menus are added. I hope
to be able to make the program usable without resorting to
menus. The presentation of the data is below the season/league
information, and to the left of the action buttons. There are
several ways to align the labels
and the input fields. While some labels are short, others are long,
and the same is true with the input components. Here are several
examples:
This one has all of the elements aligned Left:
Season Name League Name Here |
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This one has all of the elements aligned Right:
Season Name League Name Here |
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This one has the labels aligned Left and the input aligned Right:
Season Name League Name Here |
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This one has the labels aligned Right and the input aligned Left:
Season Name League Name Here |
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This one has all of the elements bumped up against each other:
Season Name League Name Here |
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Conclusion: As you look at these various
arrangements, you'll notice that when the elements are all Right, and
when the label is left and the input right, they are far apart from
each other making it difficult to clearly see what label goes with what
input. Keeping the label and input together seems the way to
go. That leaves the last two, labels right with input left, and
bunching them together. The bunching version looks messy to me,
so I'm in favor of labels aligned right with input aligned left.