Icons and Status Information
Icons | Status Information on Screen | Status Information in Tables
Icons
Icons are not used in iViews, except for displaying status information. That is, there are no function icons on buttons or tabs.
Status Information on Screen
Icons can be used to display status information on the screen.
Examples: Alerts, warnings, errors, etc. can be presented as icons, if it is important that users quickly find information.
See Status Icons - Overview for an overview of status icons and rules for selecting them.
Status Information in Tables
Icons can be used to display important status information in tables. There should only be one such column with status icons. The status column should be the first column in the table, except if there is a column with checkboxes for selecting rows - or if there is a different view on the same data set and it is important to hold the context. In this case the status column comes second.
Figure 1: Status icons are typically displayed in the first column of a table
If there is a need for displaying more than one status icon, the icons should be displayed in the right section of the table. Such icons may, for example, convey data accumulated over several objects like statistics. They might also indicate status information of secondary importance (like "note exists").
Figure 2: Status icons in the right section of a table for displaying statistics about object sets or for data of secondary importance.
If status icons are used in tables, the column header should be meaningful so that users easily understand the purpose and meanings of the icons. The status column should only be labeled "status" if a more specific label cannot be found or if such a label would be far too long.
Example: A task list contains a column that indicates whether a task has already been finished or not. If the column header would read "Status", it would be unclear to users whether the task is unfinished, critical or cannot be processed, because such a distinction cannot be made from the status icons alone. It is better to use specific labels like "Finished" which correctly describe the type of the status; now unspecific status icons can be used, because they only modify the meaning of the label but need not carry meanings themselves.
See Status Icons - Overview for an overview of status icons and rules for selecting them.
topSource: SAP iView Guidelines for Java