[thelist] idea B: immediately save, remove "save" button. (was: Re: stupid user interface usability question: how to design a parallel set of pages that users with to click 'save' before going on)

[张韡武]

Another colleague suggested on each text field, when its content is
changed, directly feedback the change to server using ajax technology,
and no longer provide 'save' or 'cancel' button. This I think is not
perfect too, as the user may get confused for the page violate
tradition, the user may worry they cannot find 'save' button. Also they
may play on the form without knowing their modification are saved.

Sometimes I think perhaps simply creatively re-shape the row of tabs
would result a user interface easy enough to use, for both first time
user and experienced users.

The design is also misleading because the 'save' button is placed
outside of the white-background content but is used to save the
white-background content. It should be placed inside. This is an design
fault but not directly related to the current topic.

在 2006-07-19三的 13:52 +0800，张韡武写道：
> Hello. I have designed my user interface this way:
> 
> gopher://sdf.lonestar.org/g/users/weiwu/interface_example_01.png
> 
> This user interface turns to be a bad design, the top row of 'tabs'
> gives users impression that they could just click the other tab without
> saving the content and later click 'save' to save changes made on all
> tabs, but actually, each page of content must be saved separately,
> because the 'tabs' are simply anchors graphiced to be like tabs. If you
> click on second tab, you get prompted if you wish to navigate away from
> this page *without* saving, this again create usability trouble, some
> user click 'OK' thinking the modification is then saved, but actually
> the modification is discarded.
> 
> Currently it is not possible to design the interface to hold all
> contents in one single page (that is, provide a javascript-emulated row
> of tabs, once the user click one tab, only content in that tab shows up,
> other content are hidden by using javascript), nor can I adopt ajax
> technology for that involve relatively big change on the design. What is
> the best way to
> 
>       * prevent users thinking they could leave a page without saving,
>         and motivate the users to click save button before navigating to
>         another tab;