ABSTRACT
This chapter covers two key aspects to user interface: navigation and, specifically, input controls. Data systems should offer a centralized, intuitive, user-friendly interface for accessing all reports. Educators are busy people, and any time that a data system steals from them by being slow or difficult to use is time that is stolen from the students educators want to use their time helping. If educators are using a suite of reports stemming from a simpler interface this standard applies to the report's arrangement and/or table of contents. Whatever the format, good navigation design that renders a system easy and fast to use is imperative. The need for design consistency is one of many reasons why nearly all of a data system's key reports should be designed simultaneously before reports are built and released to users, as opposed to designing and then building one report at a time. Educators are often trained in a specific approach to data investigation.
