Windows Compliance Standards

These compliance standards are followed by almost all the windows based application. Any variance from these standards can result into inconvenience to the user. This compliance must be followed for every application. These compliances can be categorized according to following criteria 

1. Compliance for each application
   1. Application should be started by double clicking on the icon.
   2. Loading message should have information about application name, version number, icon etc.
   3. Main window of application should have same caption as the icon in the program manager.
   4. Closing of the application should result in “Are you sure?” message.
   5. Behaviour for starting application more than once must be specified.
   6. Try to start application while it is loading
   7. On every application, if application is busy it should show hour glass or some other mechanism to notify user that it is processing.
   8. Normally F1 button is used for help. If your product has help integrated, it should come by pressing F1 button.
   9. Minimize and restoring functionality should work properly

2. Compliance for each window in the application
   1. Window caption for every application should have application name and window name. Specially, error messages.
   2. Title of the window and information should make sense to the user.
   3. If screen has control menu, use the entire control menu like move, close, resize etc.
   4. Text present should be checked for spelling and grammar.
   5. If tab navigation is present, TAB should move focus in forward direction and SHIFT+TAB in backward direction.
   6. Tab order should be left to right and top to bottom within a group box.
   7. If focus is present on any control, it should be presented by dotting lines around it.
   8. User should not be able to select greyed or disabled control. Try this using tab as well as mouse.
   9. Text should be left justified
   10. In general, all the operations should have corresponding key board shortcut key for this.
   11. All tab buttons should have distinct letter for it.

3. Text boxes
   1. Move mouse to textbox and it should be changed to insert bar for editable text field and should remain unchanged for non-editable text field.
   2. Test overflowing textbox by inserting as many characters as you can in the text field. Also test width of the text field by entering all capital W.
   3. Enter invalid characters, special characters and make sure that there is no abnormality.
   4. User should be able to select text using Shift + arrow keys. Selection should be possible using mouse and double click should select entire text in the text box.

4. Radio Buttons
   1. Only one should be selected from the given option.
   2. User should be able to select any button using mouse or key board
   3. Arrow key should set/unset the radio buttons.

5. Check boxes
   1. User should be able to select any combination of checkboxes
   2. Clicking mouse on the box should set/unset the checkbox.
   3. Spacebar should also do the same

6. Push Buttons
   1. All buttons except OK/Cancel should have a letter access to them. This is indicated by a letter underlined in the button text.  The button should be activated by pressing ALT
   2. Clicking each button with mouse should activate it and trigger required action.
   3. Similarly, after giving focus SPACE or RETURN button should also do the same.
   4. If there is any Cancel button on the screen, pressing Esc should activate it.

7. Drop down list boxes
   1. Pressing the arrow should give list of options available to the user. List can be scrollable but user should not be able to type in.
   2. Pressing Ctrl-F4 should open the list box.
   3. Pressing a letter should bring the first item in the list starting with the same letter.
   4. Items should be in alphabetical order in any list.
   5. Selected item should be displayed on the list.
   6. There should be only one blank space in the dropdown list.

8. Combo Box
   1. Similar to the list mentioned above, but user should be able to enter text in it.

9. List Boxes
   1. Should allow single select, either by mouse or arrow keys.
   2. Pressing any letter should take you to the first element starting with that letter
   3. If there are view/open button, double clicking on icon should be mapped to these behaviour.
   4. Make sure that all the data can be seen using scroll bar.