Hi John:

Check out the book "About Face" by Alan Cooper. It's generally mentioned here as the Bible of good UI design.

There are a few basic concepts I follow:

Use tooltips with all controls.

Always hide (visible=.f.) all controls that have no function or meaning in the current object state (don't show Next button if there is no next record).

Always have multiple entry points for functions, for example, a Next button, Alt-N, and a View/Next menu item would all do the same thing. This way the user can operate how most comfortable.

Use icons carefully. Find out what the users are comfortable with now and try to keep your icons in context. I recently had a case where a form's Cancel button that cancelled changes was the same icon as the MS Office Edit/Undo button. The user expected to revert edit changes and not the entire record so this was a bad UI in context and had to be changed.

>Has anyone studied what might be the best user interface to operate a program for people who are new to computing.
>
>Menus only?
>Menus and big buttons?
>Toolbars?
>
>Seems to me that new users
>might not be too handy with a mouse...
>might get lost easy if forms minimize...
>might get confused if more than one form can be open at one time...
>
>and if you mow your yard and find a car u
>might be a redneck!
>
>Thanks