Usability Review Session at MindCamp 2.0 
April 30th, 2006
1. Vista.
- Mostly looking at the file dialogue.
- New features include back button and breadcrumbs.
- Also file attributes and tags.
- Some neat new UI.
- More exposed UI features
- Trying to keep it more consistent and accessible.
2. Can’t talk about this UI because they haven’t launched yet.
3. eBusiness Applications AJAX Components.
- should the following screencasts again cuz I couldn’t get Wifi
- Master Detail or Drill Down Pattern
- Inline Editing Pattern and Real-Time Saving
- Copy and Paste Pattern
- Alexei took a bunch of notes he’ll post later
4. Real Arcade
- design wire frame mockups in blakc and white for layout
- then change design elements, graphic highlights, colors, images ( same layout)
- people read websites in an F pattern
- used tabs because they’re common UI conventions
- had menu design constrains due to business partnerships with advertisers
- target audience is middle aged women
- can’t make UI screen size any smaller
- list menu on right hand size has image buffer to accomodate for internationalization
*AGAIN ROUGH NOTES*
Technorati Tags: mindcamp2.0, usability, ui, ux, review, design
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Usability Session with MS Vista
April 30th, 2006
Part of the Network Experience team, so they to design wireless networking. Original UI was hard to understand.
Goal: Help user get connected and understand what’s going on. Too many dialogues with cover your ass (CYA) questions. Such as the IEEE 802.1x check box.
They had credential storing built into the Wireless Network Connection manager so you could log on automatically at paid hotspots such as T-Mobile. They tested in Redmond and it was cool, but the wifi providers didn’t like it because they wanted to ad revenue on the silly login webpage.
When connecting to an unsecured AP it will alert the user with a alarm dialogue and a “Connect Anyway” button. I have a feeling this might scare users and cause them to think there AP is down. They went through about 14 iterations to decide on the word “unsecured”. They had to decide on working that conveys the right meaning.
Process
Static Mockups in Photoshop
Conversations with developers (they get told they’re on crack)
They take the advice to make development easier
Build interaction mockups in PPT with hotspots
Design flow diagram in Visio (for all possible application scenarios)
They bring in writers, UA, UX people in from different units, who delibrately try to not to understand.
They bring test users in at the point of having PPT interaction demos.
Funny UI ideas they’re thinking of:
Suggesting users upgrade to broadband if they’re on dial-up
even suggested brands
were going to use a big right hand side bar with system tools, connections, media, mail, IM
Icons:
went through a bunch of failed icons that mean anything to people, little pawn, pitch fork, pic of MS access point,
good icon example, 1950s era mcirophone
tip: if people give it weird names you’re probably on the path
decided on antenna with curved “radio waves” coming of the top
another example: networking icon is two linked monitors
Sean Lyndersay now the UI guy for IE. Great talk Sean, thank!
*ROUGH NOTES WILL TRY TO POLISH LATER*
Technorati Tags: mindcamp2.0, usability, vista,
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Things are getting weird…
April 30th, 2006
Open Source at Microsoft?? WTF?
April 30th, 2006
This is an alcohol free event. So this is for real…I think.
Rob Mensching, 7yr MSFT Veteran. His topic is Open Source and Microsoft.
He started Wix a project he’s worked on for 5yrs now. It’s for building set up packages, for all that’s installed on Windows from MS, it outputs an MSI. Was trying to get support for an OSS license. Got some initial support. Legal didn’t really get it. Had the record for shortest meeting (8min) ever with senior VP for approval. Historic meeting with MSFT. First OS project within MS.
What license to pick? There’s about 60. They picked up the CPL. It was OSI so they could actually get on SourceForge. They go from their source depot to their CVS and then push it out to source forge.
A group of 5 MS people get together every Tuesday at Rob’s house and work on this. Generally with loud music until 3am… They don’t want to be on payroll for this because they’re afraid the team dynamic will change. They even have a 70 page tutorial that a developer from Hungary wrote.
Coolest thing at the end of build process is that the latest bits get pushed up to the website at the end of the session. They’re currently try to figure out what a “quality” release is.
Wix is an experiment. Trying to figure out what OS means and how it’s different. The development process is largely the same. Although timelines are harder to meet. The big difference is who can see what’s going on, external communities can see the communication and what’s going on. The one external developer who contributed a lot got hired by MS. The biggest win is getting immediate bug feedback, partly because they can release weekly. Sounds like a great community.
There’s a lot of MS people here. At least more than 10. Most seem to be involved with Vista in some form.� But we are just a stone’s throw away from the camp us. Apparently, coming from an MS product manager, we’re going to be seeing some very surprising OSS releases from MS in the near future.� Overally sounds really good.
We should likely be looking at Wix for our .Net version of our components.
NB. I’m writing this really fast so comment if I messed up the details and I’ll fix it;-)
Technorati Tags: mindcamp2.0, oss, wix, cpl, sourceforge
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Cool Outline Tool in AJAX and Ruby at MindCamp2.0
April 29th, 2006
outlinelab.com by James Prudente is working on a really cool AJAX outlining tool for links and brainstorming. Outputs OPML for everything. Has some really neat list and tree sorting UI features. You can use the keyboard to nav keys to sort all the items (order and parent/child nodes). Just met James after my AJAX session. Really cool.
Technorati Tags: mindcamp2.0, ajax, ruby, opml
Posted in Technology, AJAX, Web 2.0, Random, Usability - HCI | No Comments »
MindCamp2.0: Paperless Office and Cool Stuff
April 29th, 2006
Paperless Office by H.B Siegel from IMDB.com
H.B. Gave us overview of creating a paperless home office after working on look inside the book at Amazon.com.
Some of the tools:
Fujitsu Scansnap dual side scanner. Under $400 (this is the only cost except for massive amounts of time!!!)
Backup service via dvd writer and USB Hardrive.
Lucene > Java based search software
What he digitized:
Bills
Medical
Nostalgic
Legal
Credit Card Receipt Bill
Taxes*
Car Maintenance
Handouts
Business Cards
Papers / Academic
Reference
Travel (I-94)*
Foreign Money
Pay Stubs
Books
Tech
Warranties
Manuals
Passport*
Wills*
Birth Certificates*
Contracts*
Home ownership / maint
Photos*
SSN / SINin Canada*
Papers
*Indicates stuff you want to keep a hardcopy of forever
Process:
- Scan > PDF
- OCR > TXT > Abby Reader
- Lucene > Index for Searching
Photos - Awesome with Picasa
Business Cards + Cardminder = Very Good
Document + Scansnap + Truecrypt + Lucene/Copernic = pretty good
Technorati Tags: mindcamp2.0, paperlessoffice, scanner
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MindMap Presentations
April 29th, 2006
Warning Raw Notes.
Just watched session by Michael Scherotter of Mindjet.
Features:
-create mind maps
-uses gestures on tablet pc
-map nodes can have
-actively at collaboration features such as syncing
-integration with sharepoint
-can export graph to XML
-nodes can be tasks and other datatypes for tracking info like effort, due dates etc.
-insert key and enter are main interface tools.
-all data is in XML
-can add charts, spreadhseets, notes, images, hyperlinks
-save as pdf, web page, etc..
-can import rss feeds
~750K Users
They’re looking for ways to style maps that encourage collaboration, for example making maps look like drafting blue prints.
Don’t have a Flash (SWF) export or plugin. Don’t have RSS changes available, thinking of doing this through a community portal this summer.
Visual Diffs, currently working with UI team to figure out how to do that. Looking at 3D models.
Integration with MS project, but not JERA or other projects.
Mapping blogs and wikis isn’t that useful
Map Dashboards. To display data sources from disperate systems. Can consume any RSS or XML data source. For example use it to consume services from MS Research. .Drag and drop entire webservice to into the mindjet interface. You can bring in RSS nodes or the entire query/feed. Go to programmableweb.com.
Using the map to caputre project elements and tasks.
Version control is not there yet, diff UI is very challenging.
Biggest use case is using it meetings, although it started out as a great brainstorming tool. Also for project management alongside tools such as MS Project.
Using it as a content management system for Mindjet labs. www.mindjet.com/labs. Done with big XSL transformation.
Not there yet but working on service to search what you’re entering and let you know that data has been already entered to avoid duplicate data entry. They have add templates for VB and C#.
Technorati Tags: mindcamp2.0, mindjet, seattle
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Just Got To Mincamp 2.0
April 29th, 2006
After about 3.5 hours (long border line up) Alexei and and I got to Mindcamp2.0. I just posted our AJAX session. Looks like it’s going to be a fun 24 hours. Check back for updates.
�My photos from Mindcamp are on Flickr.
Technorati Tags: mindcamp2.0, eba, ajax, seattle
Posted in Software Development, AJAX, Web 2.0, Business | No Comments »
NetBeans sure is sexy
April 28th, 2006
Seattle MindCamp
April 26th, 2006
Alexei White and I are headed down to Seattle for MindCamp 2.0 this weekend this weekend (Sat April 29 noon until Sun April 30 noon). It should be a great time as there’s going to be lots of interesting people and sessions there. I propose some sessiosn that I’d like to lead:
A number of topics I think would be interesting and fun for the group.
- Usability benefits of AJAX. Talk about the benefits of
usability in web apps and also some of the commone pitfalls in AJAX UIs
(also how to avoid these pitfalls).
- AJAX Showcase. Would be fun to look at whole bunch of cool
RIAs and their interfaces and discuss the associated design patterns
and they were decided on. There would be a lot of value in screen
capturing this sessiong for a blog or wiki. Wouldn’t have to be limited
to AJAX either, there’s lots of cool Flex and Flash stuff out there.
Even cool hybrid apps!
- AJAX and the online Office. What’s the business for AJAX
applications? How would we benefit from a fully funcional online office
suite? Does it even make sense? How can we benefit from dropping the
document concept and focusing on the data. Get a sneak peak of AJAX
based excel app.
You can see all the topics suggested so far here.
Some interesting people and groups that I hope to meet and/or see again and chat with down there are: Corante, Brady from the O’reilly Radar, Scoble, Chris Pirillo, David Geller, Touchstone, Nancy White, Ponzi and I’m sure many more.
If you’re not going to make it but would still like to meet up while I’m in town drop me a line. Any other cannucks headed down from Vancouver? I have room in my car.
Big thanks to Gear Live Media and Andru Edwards for making this happen!
Technorati Tags: mindcamp2.0, seattle, barcamp, unconference, ajax, eba
Posted in Technology, Software Development, AJAX, Business, Usability - HCI | 6 Comments »
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