Screen layout

Every page in Light shares a three-panel layout: left navigation, central workspace, and — when open — a context panel on the right. The layout is deliberate, and understanding it makes the whole app feel predictable rather than overwhelming.

Left nav: where you are

The left column is orientation. It shows every top-level section your site has, highlights the current one, and stays stable as you move between pages within a section.

Because the left nav is fixed, the app always tells you where you are without you having to look. You can be three pages deep inside a customer record; the Customers icon is still highlighted, still where you expect it, still one tap away.

Workspace: what you're doing

The workspace in the middle is where the current page lives. Page headings, tables, detail views, forms — all the content that's actually about what you're working on.

The workspace changes completely between pages (that's its job), but its structure is predictable:

• Page title and subtitle at the top
• Primary actions in the top right
• Main content filling the rest
• Tabs at the top when the page has sub-sections

This predictability is what makes the app learnable. Once you know where to look on one page, you know where to look on every page.

Context panel: help, or more about the thing you're on

The right side is reserved for context that supplements the workspace. Two common uses:

• Help panel — documentation for the current page
• Object context — on the encounter workspace, a panel that shows the customer's immunisation history, notes, or profile alongside the form

Context panels open and close without navigating away. They're the app's answer to "I need more information about this thing, but I'm mid-task".

Why this matters

Clinical software has a tendency to accumulate modes — different pages with different structures, different action placements, different rules. That makes it hard to learn and slow to use.

Light's three-panel model is a conscious counter to that. The cost is some flexibility — we can't build a wildly different layout for one area — but the benefit is that staff spend less time re-learning where things are, and more time getting work done.

When the model breaks

A few surfaces deliberately break this pattern:

• The encounter workspace replaces the main left nav with a form-section navigator; the left column is context, not navigation. When you're on an encounter, the "where you are" is clear from the page title
• Kiosk mode strips away most of the chrome. It's a customer- facing surface, not a staff one, so the whole layout simplifies
• Onboarding runs as a wizard, not the normal page pattern. It's a one-time flow

If a page doesn't follow the three-panel model, there's usually a reason — it's a different mode, a different audience, or a different kind of task.

Discoverability vs familiarity

Consistent layouts reward learning. Your first week with Light is slower because nothing is where you expect it; by the third week, you stop noticing the layout because you've internalised where everything is.

The three-panel model is optimised for that third week, not the first. Documentation (like this) is optimised for the first.