Archive by Author
Microsoft: Stop the shiny object syndrome.

Microsoft: Stop the shiny object syndrome.

It’s soon time for yet another product roll out, you’re in the marketing team and faced with a urgent issue – we need example demos to excite the developer base?. Like most other Product Managers you look for the nearest and latest vendor, drop a few hundred thousand in their laps and say the words [...]

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UX Creator Tip: Fear the surrogate user.

UX Creator Tip: Fear the surrogate user.

Ever sat on a project and heard someone give their account as to why the user base won’t like xyz feature or UI change? Ever sat in a cubicle and listen to someone rail against the idea of change for fear it would upset the user base to the point where the helpdesk would [...]

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Your own Mulit-touch Surface Prototypeboard-thingy.

Your own Mulit-touch Surface Prototypeboard-thingy.

Today it hit me that a co-worker and I have been using a mini-whiteboard in a way that could easily be used as a way to prototype Surface style applications or ideas you may have.
Let me explain, there is a partition between me and my co-worker which used to be a locker of [...]

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Project Salvaging is Microsprinting

Project Salvaging is Microsprinting

Situation is simple, you’re someone who has been brought into a project at its last witching hour, there are not a lot of project management fundamentals in the room and everyone is constantly emphasizing the “we have to get this done, no time” analogies and metaphors at you. What do you do? How do [...]

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RIAGENIC is a UX/UI Business.

RIAGENIC is a UX/UI Business.

It’s been a couple of months now since I went full time into focusing on growing a UI/UX business for myself. I thought I’d share my thoughts / notes and adventures along the way so far in the whole Microsoft UX/UI space as a freelancer.
Which are you? a developer or designer?

How far we have come [...]

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Adobe, you lose.

Adobe, you lose.

Like you, I’ve watched from the sidelines this whole Apple vs. Adobe battle take place and can’t but help laugh at Adobe. It’s like watching a geek get all agro because the pretty girl in the class ignores his advances and no matter what he tries, it just isn’t meant to be.
Let’s look at this [...]

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Lifting the Apple vs. Adobe compete veil

Lifting the Apple vs. Adobe compete veil

In October 2009 I warned the Adobe community via InsideRIA that Adobe should tread very carefully with Apple and how that if they kept poking the sleeping giant sooner or later they’d react.
It’s now April, and Apple have reacted – and like a great game of chess, it’s not check mate just yet either.
Apple [...]

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Silverlight Installation / Preloader Experience – BarnesStyle.

Silverlight Installation / Preloader Experience – BarnesStyle.

When I was in the Silverlight Product team, I had many visions of where I wanted to take the product beyond where some of my co-team mates were comfortable with (slow painful incremental growth in terms of change).
One of the main focal areas I wanted to fix, was the overall Installation and Preloading Experiences for [...]

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How to hack Expression Blend

How to hack Expression Blend

I’m the kind of guy who likes to tinker where i shouldn’t and tonight I just couldn’t help myself and decided to see how far I could go in terms of hijacking the UI in Expression Blend.
The reason that sparked this quest was that I wanted to write my own special custom UI Panel for [...]

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UX Tip: Just because you can count change, doesn’t make you a mathematician

UX Tip: Just because you can count change, doesn’t make you a mathematician

I was watching a MIX2010 video from Microsoft’s head UX guru, Bill Buxton on how specifically developers and designers engage with one another. There was a throw away line he put out there, which was stated in reference to developers whom often think that because they have a bit of design muscle deep down that [...]

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