Question

I am trying to get a graph generated through flot.I have few textboxes like project cost, average hourly rate, project completion date, avg hours/day, total project hours. Each one of these parameters can be changed

If i change the avg hours/day then the project completion date is automatically changed as the no of hours worked /day is increased or decreased it would result in the project enddate getting changed.

If we change the total project amount without changing the # of hours, it will change the hourly rate. If the hourly rate doesn’t change, it will change the project completion date. So you should be able to change one parameter and choose which other one you want to change.

Now the question is on which would be best approach to accomplish this in the UI. how do we give the user the option of selecting which parameter he should change and which parameter he would want to get affected.

Should i give an option of radio button against each parameter for changing as well as for the parameter which he wishes the change to get reflected.

Is there a simpler way to represent it in the UI.

Thanks

Prady
UPDATE:
A quick mock up can be found here.
http://174.120.159.135/~medhubin/banner/2.html.

Answer 1

I generally only do radio buttons if there are a few options. If there are a lot then a drop down list obviously saves space.

It’s hard to say without seeing a picture of what you have so far.

Edit: I think I understand what your going after now. If you change one field it will change another. This is what i would do. Lets say the user clicks on the completion date checkbox, if only one other field is available for change then disable the others or possibly fade them. You could even have arrows displayed next to each one that is allowed to be edited.

I hope this gives you some ideas.