Browse, Child Layout: Tree, Form or Both?

Question

This is a UI paradigm question I think.

How do you display Child information?

Is the Browse a Tree? Do you have a Form (double-click on browse)? Or some other way, or amalgum of things?

I'm having a discussion with a Trainer regarding the layout of a browse. They don't like the Tree (for displaying child records), but I'm not yet convinced that it's too confusing. There's also talk of having a section underneath the browse that displays needed information (context being the selected record in the browse).

The joys of getting information to the User.

Answer 1

While this is not an absolute, tree views are usually not the answer. They are awkward to browse when you know what you're looking for, and doubly so when you don't. Users seem to prefer flat lists, and a simple search function may be enough to get them where they need to go. You may also want to think about the feasibility of a drill-down interface, if the data you need to display really does need to remain hierarchical.

Edit: Just found this, which looks like it has some useful pointers to improving on a simple tree view interface.