Well, the next exciting thing I’m doing is revising a sign up process. What I really need to do is look at this book: Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks by Luke Wroblewski . Actually I’m pretty sure there is copy around here somewhere.

Again it’s all about user interaction, creating a simple effective form that is easy to use. You want the user to not even have to think about what they have to do, but just do it. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Right, so I’m trying to get my head around how to design a page to modify a hotel booking. However, there is quite a major limitation to this. The system cannot actually modify anything; you can only cancel the booking then re-book it, if what you previously had is still available, unless, of course, you are just changing something simple like room occupancy, guest name or payment method – then it can just update the original booking. That’s not complicated at all, especially when you work out how many scenarios there has to be!

So, my main challenge is how to create a seamless process for the user, while not making it a nightmare for the developers to actually program. Hmmmm.

Firstly, I created a beautiful (well, practical) process flow chart to help me work out what the page has to do for each scenario (quite often ignored in the design process, because really we just want to get to working on the pretty pictures, and, as well as helping we work out what the page has to do, it should also help when it comes to the actual programming logic).

It looks something like this…

From the flow chart I’ve been able to decide the page content and structure, as well as how many visuals need to be done to fully explain the process. All I have to do now is put them together…Well, that wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be.