Host frame user interface and its architecture

User interface research has shown that the user's primary focus is the center of the screen. The periphery is available and often used to contain elements that are helpful but non-essential to the specific existing goals. Strong present examples of this can be found in Microsoft's Multiple Document Interface Office products (such as MS Word and MS Excel). Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes are good examples of products that are more in tune with multiple application interfaces rather than just multiple instances of similar documents. This paper is following many of the elements set forth in those examples, as significant marketing research has been incorporated into those products. User personas of window's applications range from sales demo's to trade show viewers to beginning users to expert users. The PC host of these can be touch screen or mouse driven, and the display itself, while typically standard VGA variation, may also go to a wide screen format for some applications. The frame / application combination allows variations to create an optimum experience for each of these scenarios. In addition, this paper introduces the enhanced status line by applying a basic user interface design principle of "combine display and update capabilities" to the status line of a host frame.