Improving usability with colors

Shenpen

Do you want to really impress customers and collect much praises? Use coloring.

For example in Customer List make a customer name bright red if they are over their Credit Limit:

Name - OnFormat trigger:

calcfields(balance);
if balance>"credit limit" then begin
currform.name.updateforecolor(255); //red
currform.updatefontbold(true); //much more visible
end else begin
currform.name.updateforecolor(0); //standard black
currform.updatefontbold(false); // standard
end;

Sounds like a fancy and unimportant things, but REALLY helps implementation. I mean the system of the company consists of the software + the users, every management information relies on the seamless cooperation of the two, and the weak link in the chain is definitely the users. If yo do such things, the trainings you hold are easyer in an order of magnitude, because you can say simple orders like:

"Don't sell nothing if the customer name is red!"
"Don't sell this item if it is red! If it is lilac, check inventory and reservations before selling!"
"If this item is red or lilac, consider purchasing it!"

Really a big help.

Everything that helps users actually helps the consultant as 1) they will be less unhappy, maybe they will even be happy in the long run 2) they will make less errors that you have to hand-hack out of the database.