Icons and Status Information

Icons | Status Information on the Screen | Status Information in Tables

Icons

Icons are not used in iViews, except for displaying status information. That is, there are no function icons on buttons or tabs.

Status Information on the Screen

Icons can be used to display status information on the screen.

Examples: Alerts, warnings, errors, etc. can be presented as icons, if it is important that users quickly find information.

Note: See SAP Reference Lists in the SAP Design Guild for a complete overview of status icons and rules for selecting them.

Note: In the future, a restricted set of status icons that are specifically designed for iViews and Web applications may be offered.

Status Information in Tables

Icons can be used to display important status information in tables. There should only be one such column with status icons (exception see below).

Left-Aligned Status Information (Primary Importance)

The status column should be the first column in the table, except

There is a column with checkboxes for selecting rows

In this case, the status column comes second.

Figure 1: Status icons are typically displayed in the first column of a table

Right-Aligned Status Information (Secondary Importance, Multiple Status Displays)

Display in the right section of the table in the following cases:

There is a need for displaying more than one status icon; such icons may, for example, convey data accumulated over several objects like statistics
The status information is of secondary importance (e.g. "note exists")

Figure 2: Status icons in the right section of a table display statistics about object sets or data of secondary importance.

Column Headers for Status Columns

If status icons are used in tables, the column header should be meaningful so that users easily understand the purpose and meanings of the icons. The status column should only be labeled "status" if a more specific label cannot be found or if such a label would be far too long.

Example: A task list contains a column that indicates whether a task has already been finished or not. If the column header would read "Status", it would be unclear to users whether the task is unfinished, critical or cannot be processed, because such a distinction cannot be made from the status icons alone. It is better to use specific labels like "Finished", which correctly describe the type of the status; now general status icons can be used, because they only modify the meaning of the label but need not carry meanings themselves.

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