Implementation of a user managment dialog in Java

Question

I need a window for my application that allows the user to:

• see currently existing users
• create new users
• change permissions
• delete users
• view users details

While trying to find a perfect way to create a good user experience, I stumbled upon various different approaches: Dialog Based, Tree Based, etc...

I've decided to go with that:

--------------------
|list   | setting1 |
|of     | setting2 |
|users  | setting3 |
|       |          |
--------------------

There's a Listbox on the lefthandside where the user can select a person and the person's information is shown on the righthandside (where he can also make changes to it). But however all of my testers gave me negative feedback - They wanted something simpler.

Does anybody know of a program that solves this problem better? (Preferably in Java) Any help would really be appreciated!

Answer 1

Consider having a main window which lists users in a table, perhaps providing additional contextual information, such as their full name, role, etc. with buttons for adding users, editing the selected user's properties, or deleting the selected user.

User properties would appear in a separate dialog which allows them to be edited, where applicable.

I've put a quick mockup at http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/91/usermanagermockup.png.