Designing the Procedure Dialog › Principles of Dialog Design › Online Procedures

Online Procedures

In an online environment, each procedure or procedure step may be associated with a procedure step action diagram and a display. You define the possible series of interactions between a user and the procedures in a business system through these associated displays. The display for block mode will be a screen.

An interaction in a dialog refers to a single instance in which a user requests an action of the system and the system responds.

From the user's perspective, an interaction follows this scenario:

1. The user enters data on a display and indicates that data entry is complete by entering a command.
2. The system acts and responds with another display. The display may be in the same format as the one used earlier to enter data, or it may be in a completely different format.
3. After the system responds, the user may be prompted by the response to begin the cycle again by entering more data, or to select another procedure.

The following illustration shows a very simple online interaction that begins with a user entering data on the starting display.

From the designer's perspective, an interaction involves an indeterminate number of procedure steps. Remember that a procedure step is the unit at which a single screen is defined.

You can design the system action in one of the following ways:

• The system initiates a procedure step to process the data, as shown in the following illustration.

  

  If the user's request can be satisfied without displaying further data, the procedure step can be defined to respond with a display (Result Display 1) in the same format as the starting display on which the user originally entered data. If a different display is needed to satisfy the request, the possibilities depend on the target environment.

• In an online environment, another procedure step is initiated, which can respond with a display (Result Display 2) in a different format from that on which the user originally entered data. This is illustrated in the following illustration.

  

More information:

Designing Screens