Do you provide the user Drill-Downs and Drill-Arounds?

Users should be able to navigate around your application without having to return to the main menu to open a related form.

Think about a summary report - users should always be able to "drill-down" to track a transaction to its original source. Think about a data entry form - users should always be able to "drill-down" to the look up table There are four ways to provide drill-downs:

1. Preferred - Use buttons to navigate around the application

Figure: Use named buttons to navigate around the application (Preferred)

1. Double click the control
2. Use buttons with three dots - an ellipsis (...) character

✅ Figure: Good Example - Use ellipses to navigate around the application

1. Use hyperlinks

Figure: Drill-downs implemented as links (an interesting alternative but a bit too much of a visual impact)

Another handy thing to add for users is "drill-around". This is implemented by using a right mouse-click to activate context-sensitive links between related screens.