Global action buttons

[adamsilver]

We have some internal facing services that need to let users perform actions at any time. We've seen this in JUI, PUI, fees and payments. We've also seen this in other x-government systems such as CJS:

We originally designed grey buttons to work inside the blue case bar (also known as entity or details bar) like this:

But this didn't work because users couldn't spot the buttons. So we iterated and came up with this design:

The problem with the above design is that the actions are at the page level and aren't signifying their intention correctly. Sometimes we may want page-specific actions in and around that area such as on a data table where the actions sit above (not below). And you may have a search in the top right.

Then we looked at other ways to incorporate these buttons above, below, next to the sub navigation. None of it worked well for various reasons.

So our latest iteration involves changing the colour/style of the case/details bar to grey instead of blue.

By making the details bar grey it's less dominant which helps:

• the buttons stand out and live in the right place
• to use the space more efficiently
• a genuine in-page alert appear most prominently

[adamsilver]

Worth knowing this has been tested and worked well. Users spotted the button without a problem this time.