The User Interface

[AHeyne]

TL;DR I avoid dense to favor workflow. Popups are no problem here.

We are at the end of the year 2023 and ALL of my users use smartphones. Therefore, all of my users are more familiar with the web standard than the windows forms standard.

When I open a smartphone app, what I see is simplicity and lots of feedback, so I apply those two concepts into my designs. In doing that, I don't have to provide training to my users, because it's intuitive for them. They often say "Oh, it's like whatsapp", "Oh, like sending an email, right?", "This looks like the app of my bank", etc.

Things that made sense in 1995 don't make sense in 2023. My users obviously don't want to use paper for data entry, so I design forms that take advantage of the computer medium, instead of making them look like paper forms. They're no longer used to paper forms anyway, so I won't bring back ancient solutions when there are objectively better options. So, instead of dense forms, I design workflows.

If you want to know what I mean, I will share with you my inspiration app, this entire site is amazingly well detailed and it will surely give you some great inspiration:
https://experience.sap.com/fiori-design-web/when-to-use-which-floorplan/

Here's a few screenshots:
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Also look at the many other design principles used in that app:
https://experience.sap.com/fiori-design-web/action-placement/
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Or this, which is a workflow I love applying because my users understand it so easily:
https://experience.sap.com/fiori-design-web/navigation/

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Navigate that site, it's incredible. I have another one, from a UI framework I use for web apps, here's a few links and screenshots:
https://ant.design/docs/spec/navigation
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https://ant.design/docs/spec/proximity
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Make sure to browse the other categories, they give amazing insights about form design.

Most of these things can be applied to Access.

The concepts presented in your links are very interesting.

Your last sentence in particular tempts me to ask you whether you have any examples of how you have implemented something in Access.

Can you show us something, possibly just screenshots?

 

[Edgar_]

Can you show us something, possibly just screenshots?

Well, here's an example of an empty state that I recently posted:

Form blank when no records found

On my form, I have a StartDate and EndDate fields for the user to search records. I am using the AfterUpdate event on the EndDate field to trigger the action. If my vba code is set to: Me.Requery The code works perfectly and displays the records within the chosen date range. However, if the...

www.access-programmers.co.uk

The OP wanted to do something else, but I posted it in case someone googling that topic brings a user there.

Similar to what's described here:

Empty States | SAP Fiori for Web Design Guidelines

There are a lot of design examples in the links that I posted, are you interested in anything in particular? Maybe I can prepare (or discard if not possible) something.

 

[Isaac]

I also appreciate the phrase, "I avoid dense and favor workflow", I feel exactly the same.
Having said that, I'll confess to having created some very busy screens in my time. But what I'm much more proud of is a simple, minimalist layout that smartly guesses what the user needs to do based on who they are and many other contextual factors