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Our carefully designed windows applications take advantage of multiple windows that can be displayed in the main window side by side, sometime called "multi-document interface". A step further are windows that are divided by separators into two or more sub-windows. Such windows usually show contents that are mutually dependent. When an object is changed in one window pane, the content of the other reflects this change and responds accordingly. Our solution is rich with examples of this kind. One of the most illustrative cases is the combination of graphic chart that represents flight operations and numeric table that shows the same information only this time in the form of numbers and statistical charts. Both views are synchronized and as the user scrolls the upper window, the information in the lower part gets refreshed accordingly. And this is not all yet. On the bottom side of the window we can find tabs with codes for seasons. When selecting any other tab we can get a similar pair of views - this time displaying data of the selected season. There are a lot of examples for such organization of views. Many of them are combined with tree views similar to Windows Explorer which is very convenient for users by itself. They feel familiar with this presentation of data and find this organization natural. Another use of such organization is when accessing existing documents from the archives, such as invoices or Journey Log documents. Searching or browsing can be performed very quickly, especially when connected to smart controls in toolbars. All these views are resizable like many dialog windows. This enables users to get optimal use of limited window space and to configure their workplace according to their needs and preferences. All windows and dialogs save their positions and appear at the same location they left when closed. The same goes for the presentation of data within these windows - the user can continue working immediately after the application was started as it always opens exactly the way it was left at the end of the previous session. This is extremely important especially when having in mind a large variety of displays and resolutions inside each company with some locations even having multiple monitors. The user interface can adapt itself regarding the current station’s resolution and the user can tune it according to his preferences. A lot of effort was built into each application to make it ergonomic and to make it behave in the most intuitive way. The result is a very user-friendly system that makes work much easier and productive. We did our best to make all operations and functions understandable and to organize toolbars and menus, buttons and options in a self-explanatory way. Nonetheless, the help system is always at hand. It is context-sensitive which enables the user to spend as little time as possible to get a hint or refresh his memory and perform his work with little or no interruptions. And last but not least - users can have their own conference on the Web accessible directly from their application to share experience, ask questions or suggest improvements.   |
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