Projects/Usability/HIG/MessageWidget

Purpose

A message panel is a small pop-up panel shown at top of the current form that informs users of a non-critical problem or special condition. The panel shows information on four levels indicated by different colors and icons, and provides standard action that users might want to initiate.

Guidelines

• Use message panel in cases of non-critical problems that user can solve.
  • Use positive feedback to notify about user-initiated processes, e.g. to indicate completion of background tasks
  • Use negative feedback (aka error) as a secondary indicator of failure, e.g. if a transaction was not completed successfully
  • in discussion: Show the information on a warning level in case of relevant information that do not concern the current workflow, e.g. No Internet connection available.
  • Use opportunistic interaction (aka notification) to acknowledge the user about options that he or she might be interested in, e.g. Remember password?
• Display the information immediately.
• Auto remove a message when the problem is resolved or special condition is removed.
• Do not auto remove the panel if users can't continue until the problem is resolved.
• When users dismiss the panel, do not display any other UI or start any other side effect.
• Do not add additional controls to the message panel.
• Consider to show a notification if Information does not concern the actual workflow.

Implementation

KMessageWidget

cf. http://community.kde.org/Sprints/UX2011/KMessageWidget