Today's GUI Blooper

Blooper 5: Confusing primary windows with dialog boxes

What's wrong with this?
Primary windows and dialog boxes have different functions. Mixing up the types of windows causes confusion.

Variations (from most to least common):

Main window is a dialog box: The application window is designed like a dialog box; no menubar, controls in the body, and controls at the bottom.
Hybrid windows - The application window has aspects of both, such as a menubar at the top and control buttons at the bottom.
Dialog boxes that are minimizable - desktop icons and taskbar buttons are supposed to represent either user data files or applications.

Design Rule:
Primary windows and dialog boxes have different roles.

Window feature	Primary window	Dialog Box
display duration	usually long	usually short
modal	no	if needed
menubar	yes	no
toolbar	if needed	no
help provided	rightmost menubar menu	help button (optional)
window control buttons	no	bottom or right edge
resizable	yes	usually not
minimizable	yes	no
maximizable	yes	no
window close function	if main: exit cmd in file menu if not main: close cmd in leftmost menu	OK, close, cancel buttons
titlebar	app: function - data	app: function

April 25, 2005

Images from GUI Bloopers, by Jeff Johnson. Used without permission.