Using input controls for display-only data on GUI Bloopers

Posted by arlene

A blooper that has become common in recent years is using input controls—checkboxes, radio buttons, text fields, etc.—to present data users cannot change. This refers to controls that are never editable, not to ones that are temporarily inactive (grayed).

First, it uses checkboxes to mark “Required” fields. Users can’t change these checkboxes; they are only indicators. Farther down the form is a text box labeled “Special Instructions.” These are instructions for filling out the form. They are in a text-entry box like the one below it, but are not editable.

Part of the problem is that some GUI toolkits allow controls to be set to “noneditable.” This encourages developers to misuse editable-looking controls to display noneditable data.

Noneditable text fields

Text fields are the input controls most commonly misused for presenting noneditable data. An example occurs in Microsoft Windows’ Regional and Language preferences window.

Reasons for the blooper

GUI developers typically commit this blooper for one of several different reasons:

1. Setting editability but not appearance. Input controls in most GUI toolkits have an attribute that controls their editability. Unfortunately, many toolkits do not automatically change the appearance of noneditable controls: they continue to look editable unless programmers explicitly set appearance attributes, such as border visibility or interior background color. Predictably, programmers often set a control to noneditable and don’t change its appearance attributes. The result is this blooper.

2. The GUI toolkit let me do it, so it must be OK. Many programmers don’t know the guidelines (because they haven’t seen any) and assume that if a GUI toolkit lets them do something, it must be OK. Bad assumption!

3. But I made it inactive. Most GUI toolkits allow controls to be set to inactive: they don’t respond to user actions until they are again set to active. Inactive controls look grayed-out. However, noneditable data is different from inactive input control and should look different. When GUI toolkits do provide both an active/inactive attribute and an editability attribute on controls, some programmers don’t know which one to use and use the wrong one.

4. Labels are only for labels, right? The fourth reason comes from misleading control names. Most GUI toolkits have a control for displaying noneditable text on a panel. Alas, many toolkits call this a “label.” This suggests that the control should be used only for text that labels something. That, in turn, suggests that text that doesn’t function as a label, such as read-only data, should be displayed using another control. The only other candidate for displaying text is a noneditable text field. Hence, the blooper. In some GUI toolkits, noneditable text controls have better names: “text item,” “static text,” or “text.”

5. It has to look the same as the editable screen. Applications may display the same data in several places, but it is editable in only some places. In such cases, developers sometimes display all of the values as text fields for “consistency.” This is consistency from a developer’s point of view. To users it is inconsistent.

6. It is user-editable—just not directly. Perhaps users can edit the data, but only by bringing up an Edit window, not by clicking and typing in the field itself.

7. The data varies. The final reason for noneditable data in editable- looking controls is that the data in the controls varies. The uBid.com “Email Us” page is used for several purposes: requesting Customer Support, reporting Web site problems, etc. The required fields and special instructions vary between different uses of the form. Because of this, the designers of this page probably felt it was OK to use non-user-editable checkboxes for marking required fields and a nonuser-editable text area for containing the special instructions. Wrong! Just because the data varies does not excuse the use of controls that mislead users.

You will receive the excellent Cell Phone Data Cables Wholesale, Google Android Netbook, Blogging & Internet Surfing Wholesaler, Eken Tablet PC vs. Apple iPad, Visual Basic 2008 How to, Cheapest ASP.NET 3.5 Unleashed, Computer Science Textbooks Products Wholesale, Projectors for Home Theater, Cheap Computer Books and Internet Books, Cheapest Getting Started, Other Blogging and Internet Softwares Wholesaler and Data Cartridges Manufacturer drop ship catalogue with this coolest wholesale drop ship selling information.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Using input controls for display-only data on GUI Bloopers

• Using input controls for display-only data on GUI Bloopers
• Speech Application Programming Interface Speech-Related Technologies
• Network and Programming: the .Net framework
• Client-Side Scripting
• Sending An Attachment FREELY
• Why your Computers get attacked and how? PC Privacy Security Issues continued
• Key Differences Between Unix/Linux and NetWare (Applications)
• Data Repositories
• Future Programming, the Next Development Platform part 1
• Web Servers