[torifile]

I've got a design dilemma for you:



This app is a journalling app of sorts. Each day, a user may fill out items reasonably grouped into 3 categories: Skills, Targets, and Notes.

Within each of those groupings, there are categories of things someone might fill out. For example, within Targets, a user will fill out Feelings, Behaviors and Thoughts. All told, there are 8 specific groups of items a user will fill out. They don't make sense to arrange linearly, with any following any other. The lazy way to handle this would be using a nested tab design:



(That's NOT my app)

That is terrible for a ton of reasons. But how do I present these sections in a better way? They do each form a logical grouping: the data all belong to the same date but within those, they only make sense in the 3 groupings I've got. As it is now, they are broken apart entirely and lose the major grouping - and it's an important grouping. I can't have them all within one long list because that, too, loses an important grouping. Any ideas?

[Mac+]

I'm sort of lost with the explanation tori. Sorry.

What are the primary activities?

For instance, in the opening, you mentioned that

Each day, a user may fill out items reasonably grouped into 3 categories: Skills, Targets, and Notes.

However, in the first image, Coaching and My Profile have similar visual prominence.

I know this doesn't answer your actual question though - to that end, as above, try to work out what the key activity is that a user will need to perform and emphasise that above the others. You can hide other options, make them accessible via a secondary interaction, or (my favourite) even consider stripping them away.

It sometime pays to be ruthless with pruning, especially for mobile UX.

[torifile]

Yeah, I know that there are 5 things that have prominence and I'm working on dropping them down but the streamlining I'm looking at is related to the 3 activities logged on a daily basis. The others I've got somewhat sorted out.

Let me explain a little more:

Within Skills, there are 4 distinct sets of skills types. None of them have any logical prominence within the Skills. They need to be organized by skill types:

- Mindfulness
- Emotion Regulation
- Interpersonal Effectiveness
- Distress Tolerance

Right now, they are arranged in a single tab bar within the Skills. That'd be fine if Skills were the only set of things filled out on a daily basis.

What I call "Targets" are also important and need to be filled out on a daily basis as are Notes.

I think they should all be organized by date. What's the best way to do that while still respecting the logical separation described *within* each set. The bottom line is that 8 distinct sets of things (4 skillsets, 3 target sets and 1 group of notes) need to filled out on a daily basis and *none* of them can be removed or collapsed and none of them have any logical prominence over any of the others.

Is that any clearer?

[Mac+]

Yeah, I know that there are 5 things that have prominence and I'm working on dropping them down but the streamlining I'm looking at is related to the 3 activities logged on a daily basis. The others I've got somewhat sorted out.

That's cool, got that - I was just using it as an example of clarifying the primary activity.

It's getting late down here, but if I understand you correctly, there are 8 sets of things (4 skill sets, 3 target sets and 1 group of notes) and they all must be filled out on a daily basis.

If this is so, then consider a constraining function to ensure they are filled out before the user can exit. Otoh, if they are permitted to exit without filling the data out then forget the constraining function but be sure to record what was entered and prompt to complete the filling out upon the next entry point if this is important.

Re: layout - rather than clutter all options on one screen (I understand the second image is not from your app) consider a card per task that the user swipes past. The downside is this can get long and tiring quickly and you end up prioritising the order the cards are presented.

Another alternative is to use the date picker selector to change what mode (skills, targets, notes) is presented on screen.

For instance, you may have a date selector up top that the user interacts with to choose one of the modes. User chooses skills - display that mode with four tabs below. User then selects target - screen changes underneath to display that mode with three tabs at bottom. User selects Notes - display that screen (no tabs I presume) underneath. If meant to have a constraining function, then Save only becomes an active option when all cards are filled out. Provide progressive tracking to give the user a sense of accomplishment and progress as they enter the data too.

With this option, you are not prioritising the order specifically - just providing a starting point for viewing what needs to be filled out. Then the user can select as they please. The downside is the eight sets are not visible at once. However, you could design it in such a way that their status of being filled out is visible in any mode, so that acts as a trigger and visual aid to those filling the cards out as to what remains.

Hope that made sense - I'm off to bed now.

[torifile]

That made perfect sense and the direction I'm thinking about going. There are a couple of options with that and right now I'm leaning towards using the tab bar controller at the bottom of the screen to go between the 3 sections. They tap into the correct date using a date picker and then are shown one of the 3 sets of things they need fill out. The tab bar controller would move them through the other sections. Order is not important and they're not *required* to fill out any of them.



That would have Skills, Targets and Notes. But that's essentially a repackaged nested tab setup, isn't it?

On iPad, it's a little easier to think of ways to present the data but iPhone is presenting some problems.