How to develop an interface for creating conditional expressions?

Question

I need to develop a user interface for entering something like "if x or (y and z), then do a, b and c." The data that will be entered by yourself is already quite complicated, how do you wrap it in an intuitive interface?

Answer 1

This is a good article.

http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1007

I used the ideas in this article when creating a form for entering benefit deduction rates. In short, he recommends creating a form similar to Mad Libs (remember these books as a child).

Answer 2

Here is an example of how I solved a database error problem. This was done ten years ago on a Linux box, so L & F is quite motivated, but shows a general concept:

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This works pretty much as you expect. You can change “ANY of the following” to “ALL of the following,” and the labels on the following lines change from “or” to “and”. The "IS" button can be changed to "IS NOT", as well as to the "Matches pattern" and some other options.

You press the + / - buttons to add additional criteria. You can create logical groups that allow you to make expressions such as "a or (b and c)," but they almost read like a set of English sentences.

In your case, instead of the "Order by" section, you may have a "do these things" section.

This would be inconvenient to use if you need to create very complex queries, but if you need a complex query, you are probably smart enough not to need such a graphical interface. It was designed more for the average user for simple special requests.

I would definitely change the way it looks if I had to do it again, but the basic mechanics work pretty well.

Answer 3

Here is my answer from a similar question: An intuitive interface for composing logical logic?

I would split your interface into two parts: state and result.

Here is an example of a conditional interface:

A few thoughts

• The interface just starts
• If this gets complicated, it is because the user has built it step by step.
• No editing or drag / drop - just create and delete branches.
• Conditions is a simple drop-down list in this example, but can be more complex or possibly negative. Basically this interface allows you to compose expressions.
• I think it is a good idea to avoid this type of interface if possible

Answer 4

Will binary logic always be the same (only Or's, And's and Not's)? If so, you could create a logic diagram user interface similar to those used in designing logic diagrams.