Motif and Common Desktop Environment: Style Guide Reference Migration Version

Motif and CDE 2.1 Style Guide Reference

Persistent Cue

Reference

Description

A persistent cue directs the user's attention to a part of the screen or user interface, indicates a particular state of an object, or alerts the user about potentially serious situations. There are three types of persistent cues:

Graphical cues (augmentations of existing graphical elements)
Information provided in window information areas
Messages in secondary windows

In degraded environments (for instance, in a low-light environment or if the user is visually impaired) persistent cues can be supplemented, replaced, or augmented by cues in other sensory modalities, such as sound.

When to Use

Required: Provide a persistent cue to distinguish the state of some object represented by an element in the user interface or the status of some task that the user requested.
Required: Provide a persistent cue to alert the user about a potentially serious condition in the operating environment.
Required: Provide a persistent cue to attract the user's attention to some area of the interface.
Recommended: Provide a persistent cue to inform the user about features or behavior of the interface element with which the user is interacting.
Recommended: Provide a persistent cue when the user requests help with the application or an element of the interface.

Guidelines

Required: If the persistent cue is intended to alert the user, supplement it with a warning signal.
Required: If a persistent cue represents an internal state that is changing, update the cue as the change happens. If the change is a continuous change, update the cue continuously or at regular intervals.
Required: If a persistent cue blinks (for example, it turns on and off repeatedly) use it only if the element it is on has input focus or if the user must be made aware of a critical condition.
Required: Do not design a new persistent cue to represent a state that already has one defined for it.
Required: If a persistent cue is associated with a task, display the cue while the task is in progress and remove it when the task is done.
Recommended: If a task displays a persistent cue while it is in progress and the task takes a short time (between 2 and 10 seconds), use a special pointer as the persistent cue.
Recommended: If a task displays a persistent cue while it is in progress and the task takes an intermediate to long time (longer than 10 seconds), use a message as the persistent cue.
Recommended: If the element with a persistent cue associated with it is moved, move the persistent cue along with the element.
Recommended: If a persistent cue represents an internal state of the application or operating environment that can change independently, and if it changes such that the cue cannot be displayed, and your application has determined that such a change has occurred, remove the persistent cue.
Recommended: Supplement the persistent cue with a warning signal if the user might ignore the cue inadvertently.
Recommended: If your application can determine that a persistent cue is no longer needed, remove it.
Recommended: Do not change the behavior of an element of the interface just because a persistent cue has been associated with it.
Recommended: Do not design any element of the interface so that it will always have the same persistent cue associated with it. It should be possible for the application to show the element with or without the persistent cue, depending on some user-modifiable internal state.
Recommended: If a persistent cue modifies the appearance of the element it is on, design the cue so that it does not change the size of the element. If this is not feasible, design the element so that the size of the persistent cue is included in its size. If neither option is feasible, use a message instead of a graphical cue.

Essential Related Topics

For more information, see the Information and Message Areas (Area), Message, and Warning Signal reference pages.