I have worked for many companies writing individual applications or application suites. Since my experience is usually limited to back office clustering I have little exposure to the Human Machine Interface layer. Usually these systems are driven from a user perceptive from a central "Menu" application. The application is usually simple using a "Tree View" and icons to represent individual application or application suites. As a outsider looking in it seems this design is selected because of user familiarity and the simplicity of implementation. It seems there must be a better solution! So, I ask the community. Have you seen elegant, simple and intuitive central navigation for large application suites? If so could you point me to examples, white papers or etc.?
I am looking be educated,
Kevin
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hliljegren
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I don't know if you got my earlier reply as it was removed in the backup-restore process due to spamming... but here goes again...
To give a good advice about your problem I think you need to support some more info.
How many "apps" do you need to be able to start? Do you need to easily add / remove apps? Are they logically grouped in some way? Do you need to do anything else appart from starting them? What kind of users do you have? (Beginner, experienced or "power users"?)
The desktop metaphor have been around quite some time, and there have been several attempts to create something else more elegant but the desktop metaphor is still totally dominant! Why? Because it behaves in a logic, consistent way.
If you have users mor on the power user spectrum I think you should have a look at solutions like QuickSilver or LaunchBar (Do a search on YouTube to get a glimplse). They both let you start every app (well almost do anything) with just a few keystrokes.
To give a good advice about your problem I think you need to support some more info.
How many "apps" do you need to be able to start? Do you need to easily add / remove apps? Are they logically grouped in some way? Do you need to do anything else appart from starting them? What kind of users do you have? (Beginner, experienced or "power users"?)
The desktop metaphor have been around quite some time, and there have been several attempts to create something else more elegant but the desktop metaphor is still totally dominant! Why? Because it behaves in a logic, consistent way.
If you have users mor on the power user spectrum I think you should have a look at solutions like QuickSilver or LaunchBar (Do a search on YouTube to get a glimplse). They both let you start every app (well almost do anything) with just a few keystrokes.