Mike,

>Is the concept of Views used only for filtered data or joined tables? Should I
be always using Views in my design concept?

From a UI standpoint views are mostly more practical than using tables directly. They're nice solutions for displaying data from various tables (joined) with limited rows in a grid or list.

On the other hand, if working with or processing large sets of records for various reasons, direct access to the table is most likely the preferred way since it will be way faster than using views.

Walter,