simon.says : UX

Summary of SPARK UX

smguest — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 01:57:00 GMT

Software Architects have a tough job. They need to be experts in mapping business needs to technology, understanding the IT organization, and domain specific areas such as service orientation, workflow, security etc. One of the areas that often gets overlooked however is User Experience (UX). If many software architects were building architects we'd have structurally sound buildings, but one ugly city!

This "UX for Architects" message is one that I've been taking on the road to a number of events recently, including TechEd in Boston this year. Judging from the feedback from these events, this is a topic that resonating well, but doesn't seem to be getting the attention it needs. To help this along, the Architecture Strategy Team at Microsoft hosted SPARK UX, a two day workshop on this very issue this week at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, CA.

We invited 30 top thinkers from a mix of UX and Software Architecture backgrounds to discuss the issues that surround this problem. The attendees included a few that have already publicly blogged, including Adam Richardson from Frog, Brandon Schauer from AdaptivePath, Lou Rosenfeld, and Phil Barrett. Analysts from Ovum and Gartner were also in attendance.

This workshop style gathering was moderated by two professional facilitators, and focused on card-storming and working group exercises as we covered a number of topics during Monday and Tuesday.

One additional highlight for many attendees was a presentation by John Hill, who is the building architect responsible for the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, along with a number of additional resort hotels across the world. It was fascinating to listen to some of his experiences, especially when someone asked "what's the worst mistake you've ever seen". To this, John thought for a minute and answered "Hmmm... nothing I can really think of". If we'd have asked the same question to an architect in our industry, I think we would have been inundated with tales of projects that hadn't been completed on time, or didn't meet the needs of the clients! For me, this was very indicative of how immature our industry is.

So, did we get a single, all encompassing answer on how to solve this problem? Not in the day and a half - but we did come away with a set of actions and outcomes that I think will set this in motion as we continue down this path. These included:

On the last day we discussed whether a "User Experience Architect" was a role or discipline within an organization. The answer is always going to be "it depends" based on who the organization is, but the group did agree that that many roles included a blend between architecture and UX. I believe that identifying this role is an important step to understanding what guidance we need to create.
I think there was a lot of agreement that we need to do more to incorporate UX into the Software Development LifeCycle (SDLC). We were fortunate to have Jeff Patton from Thoughtworks who admitted that many people are thinking about this today, but not much is really available publicly.
We need more UX sessions in architecture events and more architecture sessions in UX events. I'm personally going to be kicking this off by introducing an "experience" track at our next Strategic Architect Forum (SAF). I'm also looking forward to seeing more architecture related sessions in user experience and design events such as MIX, DUX and AIGA.

Lou Rosenfeld summarized the event well by saying that this is a journey, not a destination. For those that attended I'm hopeful that this unique and non-typical event from Microsoft demonstrated this, and look forward to continuing the discussion.

Hitting the WPF Curve (a.k.a. Falling off the WPF Cliff)

smguest — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 02:02:00 GMT

Learning WPF can be hard. Even if you have experience with Windows Forms or SWING, many concepts in WPF/XAML are very different and require a total brainwash before you can even put a button on a form. In his blog, Karsten calls this the WPF Curve and offers several resources to help.

Being on a mission to get more familiar with WPF (if for nothing else, to avoid handwaving in my UX presentations :-)), I wanted to offer this post as one of the many resources to help get you started. This is what you may learn in today’s installment:

Environment

Getting your environment right before you start following any of the code samples is critical. If you are not using a Beta version of Vista, you’ll need to install either the June or July CTP of the WinFX runtime. Fortunately, testing whether everything is installed OK is relatively easy. Simply use notepad to create a test.xaml file with the following:

<TextBlock>Everything is working!</TextBlock>

</DockPanel>

Save the file, then click on it from Windows Explorer. If you see the text “Everything is working!” you (should) have the right foundations to begin.

Which IDE?

After the runtime is installed correctly, I recommend considering what IDE you are going to use to create WPF applications. Options include:

Notepad (or other text editors) – for the diehards out there that can live without Intellisense.

Visual Studio.NET with Cider preview installed – for the VS.NET junkies that can’t live without Intellisense.

Expression Interactive Designer CTP – for the photoshop inspired bunch.

Personally, I use a mix of all three. Notepad is great just for copying/pasting code snippets that you want to test, but difficult to bind events to, or do anything advanced with. Cider is good for providing Intellisense support for XAML files in VS.NET, but don’t expect full designer support today. EID is good for drawing a shape and then examining the underlying XAML to see how it was done. It can be a little verbose, but it works well for “how do I draw a circle?” type questions.

You may have heard of XAMLPad (a utility that ships with the Windows SDK). Again, it’s a good editor for trying sample code out – saves ALT-TABing between Notepad and Explorer, but I find it difficult to manage multiple XAML files and code behind scenarios.

My First Project

After getting your IDE choice setup, I recommend creating a blank application as a reference point. This is something that you can always fall back on in time of need. After a few attempts, I created a blank project in Visual Studio 2005 by choosing File -> New Project -> WinFX Windows Application.

After you do this you may see this error:

Error 1 Could create an instance of type 'Window'. C:\Users\sguest\Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\BlankProject\BlankProject\Window1.xaml 1 1 BlankProject

…but if you compile it goes away (a Cider-related bug I believe).

You now have your first project up and running – now what? I recommend the following sequence for starting out learning new controls in WPF:

Panels

Start with Panels. Learn about the StackPanel, DockPanel etc – add a few pieces of text and change the orientation around. Add a couple of buttons for good measure (although they won’t do anything yet). This will give you a good overview of layout in WPF and you’ll have an appreciation where and how objects are displayed on the screen.

<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" DockPanel.Dock="Top"

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"

xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"

Name="StackPanel1"

</StackPanel>

Multiple XAML Pages

After you master the panels, check out the Hyperlink control. The demos in the SDK documentation show how to use it to navigate between multiple XAML pages, which is really useful.

<Hyperlink NavigateUri="Window2.xaml">Go to Window 2</Hyperlink>

Events

Once you have some mastery of placing stuff in a window, I recommend learning how to bind events. The easiest way to do this is to create a button that changes its own title. Start with a button, and add a Click element that points to a function in your code behind file (you’ll have to add the function manually).

<Button HorizontalAlignment="Left"

Width="100" Height="25"

Margin="10,10,10,10"

Click = "b1Click"

Name ="Button1">Click Me Please</Button>

…

public void b1Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)

{

this.Button1.Content = "You clicked me!";

}

This is an easy way to explore events – and will give the opportunity to see how you can modify objects defined in your XAML file from code behind. Use Intellisense to dig into the options available.

Styles and Triggers

After getting an event working, you’ll next want to investigate styles. A style enables you to control the look and feel of multiple controls in your application. For example, you can create a “MyButton” style which sets the background of each button to red. When you define a button, you can then set the style as appropriate. Of course, the advantage of this is that you can change the style once and effect multiple controls in your application.

<StackPanel.Resources>

</Style>

</StackPanel.Resources>

…

<Button HorizontalAlignment="Left"

Width="100" Height="25"

Margin="10,10,10,10"

Style ="{StaticResource MyButtonStyle}">Button 2</Button>

After getting the hang of Styles, look into Triggers. These are a subcomponent of Styles, and allow events to be fired based on a style. For example, changing the style of a control when you hover over it with the mouse.

<StackPanel.Resources>

<Style.Triggers>

</Trigger>

</Style.Triggers>

</Style>

</StackPanel.Resources>

Where are we?

Hopefully that’s enough to give you a taste of using some of the simple controls in WPF…

I’m off getting my head around 2D elements in WPF (a.k.a. Argh… All I want to do is to draw a line!) and will be back with news. Wish me luck...

SPARK UX 1 - 3 Oct, Half Moon Bay, CA

smguest — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 21:02:00 GMT

SPARK UX

the two faces of design

A FORUM TO EXPLORE THE INTERSECTION OF ARCHITECTURE AND EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Too often today, software products and interactive experiences fall short of their potential because the user experience does not serve the interests of its users. The engineering side of software architecture often fails to consider the full implications of its design, leading to interfaces that are non-intuitive, and experiences that compromise the product and threaten the success of the business.

To help address this, my team is inviting industry leaders and luminaries in this area for a think-tank meeting called SPARK UX. SPARK UX will examine the issues behind this problem to inspire a new framework for bringing the “art of user experience” into the process of software architecture. The event will bring together a diverse collection of architects, engineers, designers and analysts to define what user experience means for software architects, and provide guidance to all practitioners for improving both the process and end results.

The mission of SPARK UX is quite simple: to empower software architects to improve the user experience of products everywhere.

Together, we will help software architects think about user experience, define how software architects can employ UX in their software development lifecycle, and reveal how product managers can value UX as an integral part of the development process.

SPARK UX will be held at The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, CA (south of San Francisco) Oct. 2-3, 2006. If you know of someone that should be there (or if you think you should be there!), let me know by using the contact form on this blog.

Launching Applications in Vista 5472

smguest — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 18:54:00 GMT

Scott has a great post about replacing “start/run” to launch applications quickly – I’ve used a number of the tools he lists in the past to find optimal ways of launching applications. One of the options he does miss however is the new start menu in Vista, which now contains a field for entering search or command line requests.

This new field (at the bottom left of the menu) gives me a few interesting ways of getting stuff done quickly:

· As with the previous MSN Desktop search, I can search for things on my desktop or on the web by just typing in the box and launch applications on the path by just typing their name (e.g. notepad).

· I can find and launch applications on my start menu by typing in a portion of the name. For example, instead of going Start -> Programs -> Microsoft Office -> Microsoft Word, I can type in “word” [enter]. I use “studio” for VS.NET etc.

· This also works for favorites – for example, I have a favorite saved as “owa” (for Outlook Web Access). I type owa [enter] and the URL is launched. I use foldershare to synchronize my favorites folder between machines, which works really well.

· I can shutdown/hibernate/standby the machine by [Windows Key] [right arrow x 3 times] and selecting the appropriate option (e.g. H to hibernate).

I’m still looking for a good way to do macros with this approach (for example, [amaz lord of the rings] or [quote MSFT]), but so far I’m finding this a very useful feature.