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you've already gotten some great suggestions from the list. I just wanted
to add a couple of points, and a question.
1) Make sure you include guidelines for terminology, abbreviations, and
capitalization specific to the industry your project is aimed at. General
design guides can't possibly cover it, and some of the most embarrassing
mistakes can get made by programmers who don't know when and how to spell
out or abbreviate terms specific to your industry.
2) Look at what the project is intending to accomplish. If you are
automating a paper-intensive manual process, look at the existing paper
forms for guidance on how to organize the information. If you are working
on a project that is supposed to automate decision-making, look for the
process models of how those decisions get made, and design screen flow
accordingly. Keep in mind how the incoming data is being filtered to reach
a particular conclusion.
My question: I have several web-design texts, and numerous useful URLs on
designing web sites. However, are there any standards yet on designing the
UI for a web-based application? I'm looking for something similar to
Microsoft or Sun style guides but which cover browser-based applications.