Designing the System Structure › Designing the User Interface Structure › Mapping User Tasks to a User Interface

Mapping User Tasks to a User Interface

You build a system structure using a prototype of the user tasks and sub-tasks. Examine the opportunities and technical limitations of the products being used. In particular, decide how to subdivide the system into procedures by considering issues such as the following:

• A data maintenance task should be supported by one or more system procedures, depending on data integrity and other business rules.
• Part of a user task, such as a look-up display, is a part of many user tasks, and so needs to be supported by a separate reusable procedure.
• Parts of the user task require different levels of security.

For graphical user interfaces, decide whether:

• A window should remain open while the user accesses other windows.
• Several windows of the same type need to be open at the same time for decision-making purposes.