[Design Patterns] pattern for marking changed items before save

[Daphne Ogle]

This is interesting.   And I think you identify the kinds of  
interaction that could benefit from the extra action to  
save...particularly if changing bits of information affect other  
information and the user really needs to understand changes together  
before saving.

For simpler changes, the heuristic I tend to think about with  
explicit save is how difficult it is to "undo".   If it's as simple  
as unchecking a box or using an undo action then the extra click is  
less needed in most cases.

The mix of using these 2 patterns is a tricky one.  I think it's hard  
to set up different expectations for similar kinds of actions.  It  
does seem like a complex spreadsheet like this example may be  
different enough from other simpler form-like editing that users may  
be able to learn different behaviors?  It depends as always.  In  
thinking about Sakai, one of the consistent usability issues is  
around users seeing the action buttons.  Many times they are below  
the fold so users don't even have a cue that another step is  
required.  The demo you refer to asks users if they want to save  
changes if they've tried to go someplace else before saving any  
changes.  That helps and is something that continues to come up as  
something we need the system to be able to do.

-Daphne

On Dec 10, 2007, at 9:15 AM, Eli Cochran wrote:

> I stumbled an interesting twist on inline editing. Most of the time  
> that I encounter inline editing the pattern is to save the data  
> immediately after it's edited. But this example marks each edited  
> item and then the user has to explicitly save the data. The design  
> has a lot of problems but I like the idea of it, and I like the way  
> that they mark the changed bits.
>
> Double-click a cell to edit (like I said, there are issues).
>
> http://creamarketing.net/jqgridview/demos/demo5/
>
> For complex data where you might want to edit things that are  
> related to each other or think about your changes before committing  
> them this is a great pattern.
>
> It brings up an interesting question though. Can you mix a save on  
> edit pattern (which is great for lightweight data) with this edit  
> and then explicitly save pattern and have it make sense?
>
> - Eli
>
> . . . . . . . . . . .  .  .   .    .      .         .              .   
>                    .
>
> Eli Cochran
> user interaction developer
> ETS, UC Berkeley
>
>
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Daphne Ogle
Senior Interaction Designer
University of California, Berkeley
Educational Technology Services
daphne at media.berkeley.edu
cell (510)847-0308



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