Designing the Graphical User Interface › Graphical Design Standards › Standardize the Approach for Single Windows › Progressive Focus Approach

Progressive Focus Approach

Focus refers to the window or the part of a window that is active. We say that this window or part of the window is enabled.

For example, three windows are open on a desktop. The window whose title bar is highlighted has focus. This window is also referred to as the active window. A window typically becomes active when the mouse is clicked anywhere within the window's area.

Parts of a window can receive focus. For example, a radio button is clicked. Some of the window's controls are disabled and others are enabled. The enabled parts are said to have focus.

Only one GUI control can have focus at any given time. This is usually the control that contains the cursor on the active window.

Progressive focus refers to the windows, or the parts of a window, that will come into focus to complete a transaction.

The progressive focus approach minimizes the number of functions per window to make each window simple, user friendly, and limits focus to only the controls that pertain to the action being performed. Such a window might contain only a list and buttons.

Follow these steps:

1. Push a button or select a menu item to flow to a search window containing all the search criteria fields.

   The search window now has focus.

2. Enter information in the fields and click OK.

   The search is performed if the data passed the validations. The search criteria fields are displayed and protected at the top of the list window, so focus would be on the list, not the search criteria fields.

3. Press the appropriate button to add, change, or delete a record to flow to a window to perform the appropriate transaction.

   The resulting window has focus.

4. Click OK on the window.

   The window closes. The database is updated. The list containing the new data regains focus.

5. Click OK to perform the search.

   If the list window has focus, the search was performed.

In this approach, the user knows what steps are completed, based on which window (search criteria window, list window, and so forth) has focus.

Also, there would never be an instance where the data in the list does not correspond to the search criteria. Therefore, there are no misleading results.

The same holds true for updating a record. If the user were distracted while updating a record, the user would have no way of knowing if he committed the change when he returned. With progressive focus, the window performing the change transaction would still have focus, which lets the user that the change has not been committed.