Projects/Usability/HIG/StatusBar

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Revision as of 13:29, 25 October 2013 by Htietze (talk | contribs) (→‎Behavior)


Purpose

A status bar is an area at the bottom of a primary window that displays information about the current window's state, background tasks, or other contextual information.

Examples

Guidelines

Is this the right control

  • Provide a status bar in the main window of every standard application.
  • Do not display a status bar in secondary or internal windows.

Behavior

  • Do not use status bars for crucial information. Users should never have to know what is in the status bar. Otherwise consider to use tool-tips or a message panel.
  • Do not use the status bar to display advisory messages in place of standard tool-tips.
  • Consider to make status bar areas interactive, e.g. with a slider to zoom content. The interaction with controls placed within the status bar is a convenience feature and must not be the only way to execute an action.
  • Do not hide the status bars by default. If configurable, users should easily be able to make it viewable again.

Appearance

  • When different information are shown the content of a status bar should be structured in panels.
  • Keep the status bar plain; do not add icons.

Implementation