Scenario Manager UX Enhancement Design Notes
RiverWare 6.3 / edit 7-16-2012

Draft Requirements Statement

We are interested in considering high-level user interface enhancements to RiverWare Scenario management which would appeal to casual scenario users.

The main idea is to allow adjustments to scenario series values -- with respect to the fixed baseline series values -- using "slider" controls for scaling and absolute offsets.  Computation of scenario series values using slider controls can be expressed as follows:

  <scenario series slot> [t] = ( [scale slider] * <baseline series slot> [t] )
                               + [offset slider].

It should be possible to simultaneously apply this computation to multiple scenario series slots.

This slider-based computation will be an alternative to the currently available support for unconstrained user modifications to scenario series values -- on a per-series slot basis.

There should be dynamic feedback to user adjustment operations.  In particular, baseline and computed scenario series values should be simultaneously viewable (for purposes of relative comparison) in both numeric and graphical (plotted) displays.  Ideally, these displays will dynamically update as the user adjusts the sliders, to the extent that the GUI tools are sufficiently responsive.  When long series are involved, it will be acceptable to make use of an "apply" button to update series displays.

---