Patent ID: 8285732

Claim:
A computer-readable storage medium having program instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method, the method comprising: separately executing a plurality of different applications, each application executing a corresponding query to at least one database to generate results of its query, the plurality of applications including at least one application having query results related to employees of an organization, storing, for each application, a plurality of service parameters that control (i) display of its corresponding query results, including the selection of a subset of the query results to display and an ordering of the display of the selected subset, and (ii) a makeup of a navigation sequence provided to the user to execute the database query; receiving a selection of one of a plurality of data themes by the user, wherein the selection of each of the data themes changes the value of at least one of the stored service parameters of each of the plurality of applications to at least one value corresponding to the selected data theme to control the query result subset selection and display ordering for the plurality of applications; and receiving a selection of one of a plurality of navigation themes by the user, wherein the selection of each navigation theme changes the value of at least one of the stored service parameters for each of the plurality of applications to at least one value corresponding to the selected navigation theme, the navigation themes including a beginner navigation theme and an advanced navigation theme, the beginner navigation theme selecting a different number of user interface states of the navigation sequence provided to execute the database query than the advanced navigation theme.