Navision Financials' graphical user interface was developed according to the guidelines for the Windows 98 operating system and has earned the Designed for Microsoft Windows NT/98 logo from Microsoft. Only products with this designation offer true performance characteristics of the Windows 98 32-bit architecture. These guidelines introduce significant innovations that will become the new standard for the Windows platform.

The design of the graphical environment is based on carefully considered principles, the experience of experts in the field, and extensive testing performed by developers and manufacturers. This investment in the design was undertaken to create an interface that is as user-friendly as possible. For instance, it was crucial to ensure that all of the user's work can be performed with a keyboard as well as with a mouse.

Simple to Use

The objective of the interface design in Navision Financials is to make it as simple as possible for the user to work with the solution. The interface is based on five fundamental principles that together ensure this simplicity.

Easy to Learn

When a user has to learn a new program, consistency is the key. When the user interfaces of various programs resemble one another and operate in the same way, users can transfer their knowledge and experience from one program to another. They need less time to learn a new product and can begin working on regular tasks right away.

Great emphasis has been placed on consistency in the design of the Navision Financials graphical user interface. The design is uniform throughout the solution, so the user can be sure that the components mean the same thing, look the same, and behave the same way in all the windows.

The design is consistent with that of other widely used programs, particularly programs in the Microsoft Office® package - Microsoft Word®, Excel® and Access®-and programs from Lotus® such as Lotus 1-2-3® and Lotus Notes®. This is proven by Navision Financials being a Microsoft Office 97 Compatible product. At the same time, users of Navision Financials, the proven character-based solution, will find Navision Financials easy to learn because of its similar operating procedures.

Easy to Remember

Even for users who do not often work with Navision Financials, remembering how the various tasks are performed is not an issue. Much emphasis has been placed on making it possible to learn the basic principles of the user interface intuitively. Here again, consistency is the most important factor in creating features that are easy to recognize and use.

Easy to Correct Mistakes

Preventing mistakes before they happen is an essential part of a user-friendly solution. Since the dialog with the user takes place in the user interface, an important aspect of the interface concerns how operating errors are avoided and corrected.

Navision Financials provides a clear and understandable dialog with the user. The dialog functions also help the user if an operating mistake occurs or if further specifications are required before an operation can be performed. Often the user can look up the correct information from a reference table from the field where the information must be inserted. The functions have also been designed to prevent users from becoming "locked" on a screen, unable to continue a procedure.

Efficient to Use

Navision Financials contains several special facilities for looking up, selecting and filtering information. These functions have been made easy to understand and simple to use so that routine tasks can be performed efficiently.

One of the great advantages of the graphical user interface, of course, is that the user can open several windows at once and have access to a wide range of information. This also means that you can perform two different tasks side by side. For example, if you are making an entry in a journal and find that you need to look up customer information, you can leave the journal open while you do the lookup.

Not only can you open several windows at the same time, but you can also open the same window several times. You might want to see various parts of the chart of accounts or several different item cards at the same time.

You can also apply various filters to the same base figures in order to work on the results simultaneously. For instance, you can view a section from the chart of accounts with two different department filters to give a comparison of the amounts for two departments.

Another advantage lies in linked windows that show related information. For example, you can see customer cards and information on the customer ledger entries at the same time. As you browse through the customer cards, the data on the ledger entries in the other window changes as well so that it always applies to the current customer. This feature makes access to related information very efficient.

Comfortable to Use

For most people who sit and work at a computer screen for many hours a day, it is important that the windows be as comfortable as possible to look at and use. In this regard, visual design and color selection are key factors.

For this reason, Navision Financials uses gray shades and a simple design with the fewest possible elements on the screen at a given time. This is the design that, with Windows 98, will become the new standard for Windows operating systems.

The appearance of the application is based on each user's individual system preferences, which are set in the Windows Control Panel. Therefore-just as with the other programs that you use on the same platform-you can use the color setup in Windows to change the color scheme in the Navision Financials windows.