Here are typical design dicisions that often must be made when desinging a web-form based application:
- How many different browser brands and/or versions to target. Intranets typically target fewer browser variations than public-targeted stuff.
- Allow JavaScript - may introduce security risks and browser-brand dependancies, but gives one more GUI options and may reduce band-width.
- Frames or no frames - Frames are annoying and often complicate development and user book-marks, but perhaps save bandwidth.
- Left-side navigation menu. I find that intranet reports often grow fairly wide and horizontal real estate becomes precious. Thus, it is better to find some kind of top-based navigation scheme if possible in my opinion, perhaps a pull-down list. Sites that try to mix left-side and top-side nav menus can get messy and confusing.
- Do form validation errors require pressing the "Back" button to fix the error or redraw the form with error messages? The first is far easier to program, but perhaps inconvenient for user. Ideally one should be able to look at the error messages and their form data at the same time. Also, sometimes Internet Explorer "forgets" some or all form values when "Back" is pressed, especially when JavaScript is used to populate some fields. An alternative is a hidden "control frame" that handles displaying error messages. The form "target" points to the hidden control frame instead of the form itself. I have not explored this approach enough, but it may be the less of three evils.
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