Thanks, for taking out time to help me with my concern.I would also like to acknowledge that your explanation has provided me with a better approach to look towards the dragNdrop problem(…as you said … it should be developed to facilitate and enhance communication).
I had a look on the MindMap tools, where you can find a number of different dragNdrop ideas well played with.As I am very keen to learning, I would be reading your blog and Rashmi’s blog too.
I am working with Whizlabs, India.Whizlabs deals in Exam Simulators for Java,Oracle,CCNA certifications etc.

We have a typical question type i.e dragNdrop for our CCNA simulator.Here we use a questionimage with some blank places on it.These blank spaces are to be filled by dragging answers present as small components.We maintain the coordinates of the questions in an xml.
I wonder, if my explanation could make you any sense.I would appreciate if you have a look at one of our product and give your feedback on that.You can get a free trail download at the following address:
http://www.whizlabs.com/cisco/640-801-details.html
You can find the dragNdrop type question - Qno. 5 in trial exam.

Do have a look at my website……….. just 4 more days to go.

Best Regards
Shilps
Blog: flashonmind.blogspot.com

I wish I could post a big list of successful instances of drag-n-drop UIs on the web, but I can’t. Truthfully, it’s just not done that well yet.

One case that does seem to be working well is the new Yahoo! Mail UI (still in beta.) I think this works so well because it is directly analogous to file management systems and desktop email applications - people already know how it works.

There are other web-based examples that I have seen for ecommerce (not that good yet, though interesting, because it’s faster to select an “add to cart” link than it is to aim, drag the item to a cart, and drop on the correct spot) and image/photo manipulation where users can change the display sequence and create photo groups (but this is how desktop applications work, too.) There are even web-based information architecture tools for card-sorting tasks that effectively use drag-n-drop (check out Rashmi Sinha’s company, Uzanto, and their MindMap tools at http://www.uzanto.com/ )

I believe we need to be careful about using drag-n-drop: we want it to facilitate and enhance the interaction, to make a task easier and faster to complete, but we do not want it to simply be gratuitous (e.g., “look what I can do! who cares if it makes the task more difficult…”) There are certainly cases where it could be a good interaction design choice, but we have an array of methods available to us as designers, and we should always ask the hardest question: just because it *can* be done, is that enough reason to do it?

I’d like to hear more about how you want to use drag-n-drop in your UIs, and I’ll to remember to take a look at your new site when it launches at the end of the month.

Best wishes,

Dave

I read your drag-n-drop article.I am working on dragndrop questions and am almost throgh with the functionality, still i feel it isnt perfectly done.
The design part and also the ease of dragging is not perfect.
If you could please help me out with some simple but inspiring dragndrop examples reference?

Shilps
Blog: flashonmind.blogspot.com

I’m glad you found the Macromedia paper useful. Yes, the workflows were created with Visio 2003 Professional. The stencils and page templates were created by Fluid; the stencils have been adapted from some standard flowchart shapes and have evolved over the years as we have needed to represent different behaviors in the workflows.

If you have additional questions about the workflow modeling method, please contact us.

Thanks!

Dave

I recently read your macromedia article “Modeling User Workflows for Rich Internet Applications” and I really like the workflow template that you used.

Did you create them with visio 2003? Also, what template and shapes did you use? I’ve searched high and low for that template and I cant seem to find it anywhere.

thanks

karl