Do you use the Inductive User Interface pattern in Windows Forms?

Question

And if you do, can you give some background information on the implementation and the reasons for implementing this pattern?

The pattern is described in more detail in these articles:

• Microsoft Inductive User Interface Guidelines
• IUIs and Web-Style Navigation in Windows Forms, Part 1 & Part 2

Answer 1

Yes - we had a problem in that many of the administrators of our software found it too difficult to use. To solve this we used Microsoft's WinForms IUI framework build a new configuration and management tool for our software.

User feedback has been extremely positive, particularly with everything being task driven - i.e. the links on our home page include thing like "Create new user", "Create new department" - rather then the user having to discover how to do this by clicking through a series of menus. Since the inductive interface is more similar to a web-browser (hypertext links, back/forward buttons) it seems much easier for new users to learn.

Answer 2

I would suggest to use IUI Interfaces, whenever you use a software not on a daily basis...

Whenever you use an application only once a month, it could be very usefull to be guided through...

I have implemented IUI always manual, or at least used a Wizard-User-Control.

Answer 3

You should be careful about making a too simple system. Expert users (bankers, insurers, CRMs, etc) should have as much information an possibilites on the screen as possible. Proceeding through forms that validate slowly has been found to be annyoing if you use that form several times during the workday.