Which are you? a developer or designer?

How far we have come and yet how so little we have learnt! As someone who worked in/with the Silverlight/Expression teams to make sure the message that Microsoft has entered the UX space and that we’re essentially building a mutated Developer meets Designer and vice versa pixel ninja type person, the reality is people still need to put you into a category.

I often find myself torn between which side of that fence line I sit. As to be blunt i can do both, I know every single API inside Silverlight/WPF like the back of my hand, I can code in 9 languages outside of .NET and aren’t script kiddy languages either. I can do 3D and 2D design to the point where many have commented on my abilities here as being “eye for design” or “you are freakish good” but still i’m tormented by having to pigeonhole myself either category.

The reality is people aren’t ready to accept the person who can do both just yet and it takes a lot of proof to build trust that you can do both. I’ll let you know how I go with this journey over time but for now suffice to say, its new territory for me and yet still profitable as I can easily pick left or right and just swim in either pool where needed.

I need a UX guy urgently.

I’ve seen this a lot in the past 8 months. I get called in at the last sprint or towards the end of a project and find myself having to triage features vs design vs engineering constraints. It’s the worst time to engage a UX/UI person(s) as in the end you’re asking for a Hail Marry – “can you make this UI look good and functional oh and don’t change the code base in the process?” is a common brief.

The trick I’ve learnt is that I can do it, it just takes a lot more patience and focus –, and you really need to know every single backdoor into Blend as well as the Silverlight/WPF API’s. IT is a challenge but can be a success   if there is enough time  and the communication is clear and expectations are set properly.

The bottom line is folks – Engage early and often. Even if its just 1 or 2hrs of their time per week or day, make sure you have someone in the room who bleeds UI/UX from the beginning of the project. Don’t engage late as the price will go up you won’t be able to salvage as much as you think by then  it’s not a UX consultation its just a pixel polish.

I don’t use Blend, just Visual Studio.

You are breaking my design heart when you say this to me. Everybody right now who reads this open up Blend and pick a fight with it. If you take the time to get to know it and get to know it well, then when used right can help you out enormously with both Silverlight and WPF development. If you’re a person who likes to indent and keep their XAML neat, stop right now, you are trying to skate up hill.

XAML is not meant to be a hands-on language. It’s a common data format created to allow Design and Code tools to work against the same model without giving up their inherent capabilities. If you are editing it by hand just stop as you are not doing it right.

Pick a color any color.

The amount of times I’ve walked into an engagement and seen a rainbow of colors in the UI has left me thinking that it’s not so much a lack of will power around design it’s more the reality that not everyone is up to speed with color theory (there is a science to color selection).

The easiest tip I give people is this. Typically a brand has one or two colors that are used the majority of the time,  then they  will use white or black for the majority of the content depending on the background composition (white for dark, and black for light). When you design a User Interface for your next Silverlight/WPF project, pick one or two colors and create a ResourceDictionary called [ThemeName]Colors.

Then take that color and break into four shades (2x dark, darker and 2x light, lighter). Now then select what I call your chrome colors, these are the colors you would use for the outer chrome of your UI, in windows its typically around 4x shades of gray (light, lighter, dark, darker) and label them accordingly (i.e. chrmeAccent1, chrmeAccent2) etc. Keep your color naming conventions abstract (use camel or Pascal case – whatever lights your design candle).

Now don’t use any more colors. Lock that in and use these. Don’t deviate at all from this plan unless you have a designer person in the room who is held responsible for retaining the product/projects brand.

Lastly and this is the most important thing I can say to developers world wide:- Don’t use bold colors. Stick to pastel or light colors as you’re typically not ready for the hurdles that bold colors can throw at you. In saying this I did also notice that the MetroTheme that Microsoft has put into play has me a little nervous as it relies heavily on bold color scheming – which is great and cheap way of avoiding depth in a UI but at the same time creates a potential color scheming hazard around highlights vs lowlights and focal areas of your GUI composition.

Typography is also another concern of mine as too much reliance of ye olde text can put UI two steps back instead of forward – people don’t like to read in general, visuals often handle the workload – review the many articles available on “extraneous cognitive load” for proof of this.

MVVM that is all.

I get that some of you want to get gung-ho with PRISM, MEF or your own framework. Bottom line is this, if you’re starting out and haven’t figured out the tricks and hacks just yet of WPF/Silverlight then you are better off  sticking to  simple MVVM. It handles 90% of your workload and doesn’t require you to learn  WPF/Silverlight and an extra layer of complexity at the same time.

Keep it simple, work to the idea that the code you write in the first year of WPF/Silverlight is code you will want to throw away or refactor later on. It’s natural you write bad code or work onto something that a year later you’ll look back on and proudly say “What was i thinking”. You’ve got your Microsoft UX training wheels on, embrace this openly and you’ll do just fine. Walk into a room and pretend you have it all under control and you’ll fold eventually as you can’t credibly hold that facade for too much longer.

If you can also check out AutoFac as well, this again will compliment your codebase nicely. MEF/PRISM are really for folks who have a team of engineers and are looking to build a complex mammoth size system – that’s the reality even if Microsoft try to deliver a different message  – I’m an ex Microsoft Product Manager so I can spin with the best of them hehe.

UI and UX are two different things.

I need to say this out loud. If you ask someone to do UI, then they will do just that; focus on designing a user interface for an existing concept. If you need someone to wireframe and help you figure out how the whole user interface can be built, that’s where a UX person comes in. They are two different work streams just like a developer and a DBA are different.

You can find people who do both, but keep that in mind.

Oh, I need someone local.

Yes, having someone onsite is definitely a goal a team should always be on the hunt for. SCRUM teams etc benefit from this and it doesn’t need to be evangelized further. I will say however though, having someone working remotely can be just as effective especially a guy like me in Australia.

I say this, as at the moment I’m working on a project with Microsoft and it’s working out in our favor as while they sleep I work, while they work I sleep and we’re able to have a show & tell (i.e. remote stand-up) with one another where the design and development work can meet in the middle actually pretty well. As I’m able to say “ok here’s what I’ve done for you, its in your inbox when you wake up” and in the afternoons they’re able to go “ok, here’s what I need for you to start my day tomorrow” and so the cycle is a 24hr development run that works quite well.

It’s not for everyone but so far I’ve found  it works without any issues other than an expensive mobile/cell bill from my end lol.

Show me some of your work?

There’s a reason why painters and builders never work on their own house – same goes for me. This blog as weak as it looks is still the  front door  for my company – RIAGENIC. I need to get off my ass this month and put my site up but the problem I have is distilling what I do into a webpage that makes sense as I’m my worst client (picky, arrogant and will agonize over every pixel and paragraph in the site).

I also need to find  a way to promote me but at the same time associate myself with a brand, so that for me is a tricky marketing hurdle. I’ll soon see if I can pull it off!

Find people you can trust and don’t have to babysit.

I’ve worked with a lot of developers in my time, nothing annoys me more than baby sitting incompetence. I’m fine with newbies learning the ropes, that I find far more rewarding as you’re working with someone who has passion and a determination to learn. It’s the people who are lazy and expect you to spoon feed them every 5mins on “how”. I didn’t learn Cinema4D by sitting next to a 3D wizard and ask “Ok so how do I write an xpresso script that makes the wheels rotate per frame”, I sat on Google and the objective was this “Find how to make wheels rotate in xpresso” and eventually I found it. Along the way I learnt a lot about Cinema4D and Xpresso as i was hunting for my answers.

If you work with me, I will set the benchmark high per person I meet, I will quickly assess your skill set and then raise the bar to challenge you to meet it as I do want to work with people who get it and are smart at what they do.

That being said, I love nothing more than coming into a cubicle of developers and feeling like I’m the newbie in the room as now I’m in learning from others mode.

At the moment I’m working with Joseph Cooney (one of WPF’s first MVP and of learnwpf.com fame). I’m learning heaps from interacting with this guy, and its a fun project at the moment we are on. I don’t have to babysit him and he doesn’t have to babysit me. We just looked at the specifications, agreed on a solution structure and boom, were’ off grinding pixels and code.

The next job I go to where they need a WPF/Silverlight dev etc, Joseph is one i’d recommend – again, its about networking and building relationships and finding people who you can trust and work alongside.

Reputation is a false economy.

I often hear how folks worry over their reputation. I’ve watched people spend way to much time either building or recovering it from a bad project etc. The simple truth to this from what I’ve learnt is that if you know your work, you approach things with openly and honesty and don’t dump and run as well as admit mistakes, you’ll come out fine.

Just focus on doing good work, reputation has a habit of following and self regulating itself over time.

At times people I’ve heard bad things about on a project often aren’t the ones at fault as  the recruiter / business development sales person didn’t set expectations appropriately or the project was a train wreck well before this person arrived and they were the last ones to hold the steering wheel as it went off the road.

Agile/SCRUM is not a religion.

I’ve seen a lot of developers follow this concept by the book to the point where I often wonder if they are conscious of how badly they have gotten. The correct way and the natural way are two different things and in the end communication is the core piece to this.

Stop arguing over protocol and just focus on establishing a clear line of communication and work on getting estimations as close as you can while at the same time admitting to your fellow team mates the moment you can’t do something or are over on your estimate – just put up your hand and say a simple word – “help”. I personally work under the assumption I’m the dumbest guy in the room, it keeps me calibrated and if you work with me and think “geez i thought that guy knew all of this” that’s fine, but i probably do, but i’ll ask anyway just to make sure.

I’ve felt the wrath of a false hero before, and I ended up having to do his work and mine at the same time only to be burnt for it later on. I could of thrown this person under a bus and said “well actually it was his fault” but in reality, I just absorbed the blame and avoided working with this person since.

That is all.

Note: I am a UX/UI Ninja for hire.

Contact me at scott at this domain.

Related Posts:

• Context and Experience Matters.
• My Slides: Microsoft UX: What Just Happened
• Silverlight is creating a mutant designer who can code.
• Microsoft: Stop the shiny object syndrome.
• Project Salvaging is Microsprinting

I have an Icon fetish that is disturbingly wrong. In that I collect them, horde them and would happily spend Microsoft’s good hard earned money on as many of them as I can find – if allowed.

Yet, what makes Icon’s so special? in that why do they enhance an applications user interface to the point where it almost is lost without them. Why does Microsoft and Apple spend a lot of money and time ensuring that menu navigation and icon’s are done in a manner that’s not only attractive to the eye, but enhance a users experience?

Well, I decided to ask our UX folks, the same folks whom chose Icons for our operating systems, software applications and so on. I had one intent, to get to the bottom of this whole Icon business and more to see where Icon’s can play a role in tomorrows RIA. RIA is going to embrace the icon market, something I have now doubt and so with this, onto the top 10 questions with Frank Bisono & Brittnie Hervey (UX demi-gods).

Top 10 Questions for the Icon Ninja’s here at Microsoft.

Q1. What is an icon?, in that we all see them daily in software but what does the icon represent to the end user? 

Brittnie: An icon represents an action a user will take.

Frank: For our purposes, an icon would be a graphical representation (small picture or object) for a file, application or command (action).  For the end user it should be an easy way to quickly identify what product they are in and what action they could take on a given object.

Q2. When you choose an icon, what is the process that you go through in selecting the right one?

Brittnie:         In Vista there is set usages for every icon that we define when created.  We align the concept of the functionality the user is taking to the best visual representation we can get based on elements rather than words.

Frank:          So generally you don’t just have the luxury of choosing a pre-existing icon here.  For most products or features, we create a custom icon.  On the server side, this means literally THOUSANDS of icons.  We follow the same process as Brittnie described above.  That generally means meeting with a PM and translating the description for this icon into a graphical representation.  Sometimes we have existing elements that we re-use to create an icon, other times, it’s a completely custom concept and we start from scratch.

Q3. Microsoft has released some guidelines around designing icon’s, do you feel that the icon design community adhere to these? 

Brittnie: I believe it depends on group and situation.  Our current guidelines do not map 1 to 1 to what MS sets as guidelines.  I think we adhere when appropriate.  This is a harder question to answer.

Frank:          If you mean the design community OUTSIDE of Microsoft, well – it all depends.  We haven’t put out the most robust set of guidelines I’ve seen, but they are generally a pretty good start.  The main problem I have seen with regards to icons is that sometimes the importance of an icon is overlooked.  There are the obvious visual aspects of creating an icon, but then there are also things to consider such as geopolitical issues that can come back to haunt a developer or studio.  The last thing you want to do is insult a particular culture with the use of an icon that has a detrimental meaning to them.  I’ve also seen updates to products that continue to use icons developed for an older platform like XP.  If you are targeting your application to run in Vista, then you need to refresh the icons to match the visual style we have set for Vista (the aero style).  The last thing I’ll note is that all too often I’ve seen folks take a shortcut and use an icon designed for use at say 256×256 and they scale it down to fit a 16×16 block.  Or even worse, they upscale an icon.  That just doesn’t fly.  There are a number of reasons why you can’t just shrink an icon in Photoshop and call it a day, and the same goes for sizing an icon up.  At the end of the day, it just doesn’t look good.

Q4. I’ve always said that the icon market is ripe for the picking giving the technology going forward, where do you foresee this market going and is there room for icons in formats such as XAML? 

Brittnie:         I foresee icons becoming less important and the UI itself becoming more self explanatory.  With that being said I don’t think icons will ever go completely away, just less needed. 

Frank:          The icon market is definitely getting more advanced.  We are now seeing icons as large as 512×512 directly in the UI and with much richer detail than ever.  I totally see a future with dynamic icons that change as the application’s state changes.  As the graphics engines in our OS get better, so too will the use of icons and the value they can bring to the OS or application.  That’s just one example.  As far as XAML, there’s definitely something to be said there as well.  Right now if you take an icon created in Illustrator, you could export that as XAML and drop that right into code using Expression Blend. After all, a vector is nothing more than a mathematical computation rendered as a graphic right?  But another way to drop that into XAML is by defining a brush in Blend with an icon image and then using that brush in Blend (this is for when you only have a bitmap icon for example).  The “icon” does ok at scaling, but there is room for improvement using that technique.  XAML is definitely going to present some interesting possibilities moving forward with WPF applications.  We are still WAY early in defining that, but as we move more towards a WPF based environment, you will see more attention being given to XAML Icons.

Q5. I have an icon fetish, i just seem to store them, 1000’s of them. Do you also have hordes of icons tucked away on your hard drive and what is it you look for in the design styles?

Brittnie: No, I do not have many different icons I store on my hard drive but we do have thousands tucked away on a sever/share.  The design style is the same for all the icons we create, as we have the Vista guidelines we follow.  I only collect those icons. J

Frank:          Well, I’m not going to lie here, I am a total icon fanboi  I literally have TENS of THOUSANDS of them hoarded away on my drives at home.  I’ve been collecting them for years.  I just love customizing my desktop and folders using custom icons.

Q6. OSX and Windows Vista have a unique design style to both, and lately the "Glass Effect" plays a role in design style(s). Why is this so? and do you have any thoughts on the next upcoming fashionable style? 

Brittnie: I believe this is because it is a new visual style that you don’t see in a lot of places, and it gives the icons an extra bang.  They feel more like a piece of art work then they do just a simple icon and glass adds some elegance.  I can’t predict the next trend, but if I had to guess, I would think it would be a hybrid between the MSN style of icons and the current Vista style, giving a little less importance to the icon, and more importance to the UI.

Frank:          Hmmm, the glass factor.  Yeah, this is all the rage and trend lately, but I think we’ll see some evolution in the coming years.  The glass thing is just a little too shiny and a little too frosty in places and I think you will start seeing that get toned down a bit.  The big effect there is transparency.  Like anything else though, too much is a bad thing.  I would totally tell you what I think the next trend in icons will be, but I’d rather keep that a secret and let you see it when we release it.

Q7. What is the biggest mistake a developer or designer can do in choosing an Icon for their applications? 

Brittnie:         In our world they could use the icon incorrectly, which then breaks the users understanding of what that icon does.  Windows, Windows Live, & IE all use the same library of icons so using them correctly helps the user to immediately identify what action is going to be taken when the icon is clicked, thus enhances the User experience.   The second thing they could do wrong is size an icon up from a smaller file, pixilation then occurs in the image.

Frank:          Totally in sync with Brittnie here.  An example of using an icon incorrectly would be choosing an icon that has traditionally had a different metaphor to mean something else in your UI.  This is BAD…REAL BAD.  It’s hard to retrain people to think about something in a different way and if your use of an icon gives the user a result other than the intended result because of a bad metaphor, well then you just hosed the usability of your product.  Metaphors in general can be a bad thing and should be avoided unless it is universally known.  You have to think about localization here and what the icon could potentially mean in another culture.

Q8. What advice would you give to the design market around producing a set of icons? given that most software vendors require a themed approach? 

Brittnie:         I guess the advice I would give would depend on what style they were trying to create an icon in.  If they were trying to create an icon in the Vista style I would say the most important thing to do is work closely with the library owner so they can understand what is already built, and how to visual represent something that needs to map into our icons, and to make sure the style guide is being followed.

Frank:          For designers outside of MSFT, the #1 thing I’d say they need to know their target audience.  Sounds stupid, but if none of your users are running Vista (which we all know they should right? J), then you shouldn’t be using the Aero theme for your icons or your UI will look like butt.  This is where proper research comes into play.  Know the limitations of your product.  Think about WHERE the icon will be used, platform, form factor, etc. (mobile device or a huge honkin projection screen in a NOC center).  Think about the environment in which your icon will be seen (potential lighting situations, types of display technology).  We all like to think we are designing icons that will be used on a Windows box in a home or office environment, but the reality is that your icon could end up in a place you never expected it to.  You have to think about a lot of factors when choosing the right design.  Think ahead, anticipate the unexpected and ask a lot of questions.

Q9. Icon’s typically have two states associated to them (eg: recycle bin, full/empty). Yet some (Audim on OSX for example) are now using animation to represent status change, what advice would you give around keeping that from getting out of hand? 

Brittnie: I would say each situation needs to be addressed case by case.  I avoid using animation or multiple states of icons unless there is a status to an icon that needs to be represented for its functionality.    I think the cost of making second/third icons and the additional cost of animating those icons will keep us from doing it too often.  That is usually where I push back from when an icon of this type is requested.

Frank:          I would actually argue that it ISN’T typical for an icon to have 2 states.  There are definitely times when this is the case however.  Status change and animation are two separate things.  You can have one without the other.  I think that having status change is an effective way of providing feedback to a user for certain things.  Animation is where things would tend to get out of control if not done correctly.  In the case of an object that is synchronizing something or transferring data, I can see the value of adding animation to an icon because it’s representing that there is a task in progress. It’s live feedback letting the user know something is happening. But gratuitous animation for the sake of animation is where you start getting into the cheese factor.  How long did those flaming .gifs and websites with music last back in 1995?  Yeah…

Q10. Why can’t we have a universal icon format that fits all platforms, devices and other digital surfaces. 

Brittnie: I think it would be AMAZING to have all platforms support then same file type/format, but I don’t know if this would ever be possible considering the constraints on the web that don’t exist in the OS.

Frank:                   I also think that the idea of a universal icon format would be ideal.  Unfortunately we live in a world where everyone wants to be king and nobody wants to concede to the other player.  You can say that about almost any format on the market.  Blue Ray vs. HD DVD /  PDF vs. XPS /  RAW vs. DNG, the list goes on.  Then you have the issue of maintaining backwards compatibility and re-engineering existing apps to take advantage of a universal format.  Then who owns it?  I think people are just set in their ways and on the grand scheme of things, a universal icon format isn’t at the top of the list of priorities for most folks.  It’s a shame really, but I guess that’s life in the 21^st century.

Conclusion

I think that there is going to be a very lucrative market ahead for Icon Designers, especially as RIA begins to heat up more and more as technology gets advanced. Themed Icon designers, and quality ones will be in high demand along side UI designers – in fact – one could argue that a good UI designer for applications should come in armed with Icon Design capabilities. As you can then complete the entire themed experience in a way that others may not be able to.

XAML, is also something in which I think there is could have stronger potential. The ability to transfer icons back and forth amongst designer & developer workflow will also work towards reduction of having to design icon’s for different scales (16,32,48 etc).

This is also something which probably doesn’t get discussed enough, in that Microsoft Community can offer a lot of maturity in this space going forward. We have exceptionally talented, intelligent and extremely focused User Experience folks on our ethos. I expect as time passes we will continue to see some of this thought leadership and maturity help shape the Microsoft version of “Next Web”.

Also we have  icon design guideline(s) which others may find useful:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511280.aspx

Related Posts:

• RIAGENIC is a UX/UI Business.
• Silverlight and the reality of Accessibility

I’ve just finished reading Kelly’s post on CBS + Silverlight + Accessibility.  Its a great post, as the intent and motivation behind it seems to be based from a healthy place.

The thing about this post however, is the cold hard reality of what the intent of this post today is unlikely to yield a positive outcome. I say this boldly knowing full well someone out there will highly likely go “Just wait a darn gone minute barnesy, what are you saying here..”

The rationale behind my wording here is that when you combine a somewhat complex UX issue as Accessibility and mix it with Silverlight, well your talent pool can drop significantly beyond where it was before the two pieces were to meet. As it stands today, finding UX Specialists that can bring high quality experiences to Silverlight isn’t as vast as one would have hoped, now combine this need with “must have accessibility experience” and well, its small is all.

Its a tough problem to crack and any who do wish to partake in the quest to dominate this problem, will do so without a lot of guidance from the web. Silverlight is still in a relatively early stages of growth, as whilst there is wild success in installation and developer uptake, there is however a lot of unchartered ground to cover in terms of identifying best practices, guidance and techniques to solving problems that are mostly covered off 10x over in spaces like HTML/JS/CSS – not just with Accessibility as well.

Having said all of that, there are pieces to this puzzle that can be brought forward from HTML/JS/CSS into the Silverlight arena to push that agenda forward more. The question is really how does one bring these to the surface? who’s the folks leading this charge and how can more sites like CBS take a page out of their gospels? This is a problem in which more light should be cast as well as ways to ensure Silverlight based solutions also factor in a graceful degradation for situations where there is either a technical or resource challenge in place.

Is that fair though? in that if accessibility is too costly for a brand and as a result they adopt the cheap approach by marshalling folks with accessibility issues to a separate and less immersive experience, does this not hurt the equality of the web? Bloody oath it does and everytime that occurs, a kitten gets punched in the face – as its just as cruel.

In the end though, sadly, its a numbers game, and whether we wish to face this reality or keep hammering away at the politics surrounding it, often, companies will balance between quality vs quantity when it comes to issues like this.

If an intended experience is made up of 95% of folks who aren’t likely to face accessibility issues vs 5% who are, what is the risk/consequences of ignoring that 5%. Is that right to state that so coldly, no, but in today’s online environment that equation is often calculated daily if not weekly.  There are a lot of highly visible brands online today who aren’t 100% accessibly compliant – in fact Microsoft.com/Silverlight itself has issues there – so who or what entities cast light on this problem as one-off blog posts aren’t really being as effective as it could be. How can this issue in general, especially for the Silverlight community simply turn a corner and lead more by example?

I know there is a few folks inside the Silverlight engineering team that are solely devoted to the art of accessibility, so its not like Microsoft is ignoring the existence of this problem, absolutely not instead they are attacking it the best and fastest way they know how with the resources they have. Question is, who in the Silverlight community is actively supporting them and how many?

Where is the guidance on this problem in a more real-world focused way.

Related Posts:

• RIAGENIC is a UX/UI Business.
• RIA: 10 Questions on Icon Design – I ask our Microsoft Design folks to respond.

All tucked inside a small device.

I typically each morning, check email in bed when I first wake up – habit from working at Microsoft where email dominates your life – and it struck me this morning about the way the iPhone was designed. I looked at the outer frame, and noticed for the first time that it was designed in such a way to be simply a "frame" to what is important, the software.

It hit me as a profound thought that despite the look and attraction of the iPhone, the actual device itself was firstly made to look appealing as it sits in your hand, but secondly it was designed to fade into the background when you decide to actually use it.

Armed with this thought, I jumped on both my iMac and Windows machine and explored the various applications I have installed and noticed that there seems to be a lot of confusion on the Windows side of things and less on the OSX side of things. It struck me that the difference between Windows and OSX isn’t the brand wars, it’s the subtle way things are designed to keep people focused on the task and less on the framing of the task.

In Windows, each application becomes its own pattern, or "iPhone" whereas on OSX typically most applications chrome looks the same, in fact it must be extremely hard for software vendors to deviate from Apple’s look and feel.

This then made me think about how I’ve designed UI in the past, and I often think about the way I’ve approached the overall user interface. I have since then experimented with the way one project’s design looks, and thought about how my chrome should be prominent at the start of the applications boot sequence (login etc). Then once the hygiene task has taken place, it’s job is then to blend into the background.

Look at below, you will see that in isolation the design (even in its blank canvas form) becomes a focal point, the icon and then the panel at top etc.

Now look at the change if I simply add a rounded white rectangle, the actual chrome fades to the background, and the white overpowers your attention. You probably wouldn’t of even noticed this had i not told you about it either.

This to me is where I think software design – aka interaction design – can make or break you in terms of how users interact with your solution. My theory is that a user interfaces job is to take you to the heart of a problem, its job is to connect you to the most important thing you can possibly do from within the context of the application. Sadly though, I rarely see this in software design today, all too often I see the software become more of a Swiss army knife in terms of features and needs. The argument there is well we are good at processing multiple tasks at the same time, which is true, but i also can’t but help wonder if we’re following the same mundane pattern over and over, resulting in no evolution in GUI.

The only evolution in GUI that I’ve really seen in the last 5+ years has been the introduction of gesture based interfaces (iPhone, Microsoft Surface etc). This has changed the way we’ve approached design, as now it’s about touching the glass and manipulating design with our hands. It’s about designing around the fact we can’t see through our hands and traditional software GUI has to change into something that accommodates the new approach.

In doing this, we reverted back to simplicity. This to me, highlights that as much as we want to argue that Office Ribbon for example makes life easier to experience the plethora of features found in Microsoft Word etc, the reality is, they (Office Team) just found a way to simplify the overall interface to the bare minimum, and keep people focused on the important features.

The problem though is I can’t seem to separate the framing of the software from the functionality, meaning as I type this blog post in Microsoft Word, I keep noticing the Ribbon Menu as I type. I instead want the UI to somehow take the life of the white document space and this is all I see, then when I need something from the office draw, I then go to it. The same as if I would on my desk at home, where if I need a post-it note etc, I turn away, open a draw and get it.

Its a rough example, but the point is hopefully made.

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It’s not that you’re an idiot or aren’t good at programming, it’s just that you are trying to juggle learning Silverlight and building it at the same time. You’re already stressed, at making some bets around adopting the product or maybe you’re trying to still decide if this is still a good bet. Don’t add more layers of stress by trying to find a way to keep your entire code base re-usable.

Yes, your background in ASP.NET or WinForms is going to help you a lot going forward and i bet you have a bunch of best practices or albeit ones that you’re comfortable or at peace with (screw that guy who tells you you’re doing it wrong, did you ship? yes, well back off is what I’d say).

Silverlight is going to be different though, it’s going to require you to rethink a lot of things you’ve learnt in the past. Now you can blame the product for making you change your behavior, sure that can be an easy way out i guess, but you’re smarter than that and you adopted this for the right reasons. You’re rising to the challenge, and i’m telling you now, the code you right in the first phase of your adoption isn’t going to be poetic.

Stop wasting your time trying to build a framework that is scalable, you’ll do that in a few months. Instead, get used to the feeling of producing a solution one that you can throw away – yes i said it, throw away – in a few months from now.

Just ship. As time passes you’ll get experience, just like you did with the technology you’ve just spent x number of years spanking to death. Only this time, you’re going to be in the next early majority and you know what, it’s going to be more fun – i guarantee you.

I’ve spent close to 15 years programming for the web, i miss it. I enjoy it and I’ve used nearly all languages associated with the web (you name it, I’ve written an app for it) and for me as a Product Manager for Silverlight, I often grow jealous of the work you do.

Do me a favor though, practice more. As when I leave Product Management for Silverlight and I one day jump into the hot seat with you, I expect – no – demand you teach me what the best practices are.

The guys on my firewall can’t help you just yet, as we’re busy building the actual product itself, but soon once it stabilizes our teams over at Patterns & Practices and Framework crew, are going to show you the Microsoft way, but that doesn’t mean its the right way, it’s just our preferred way.

We hope by that stage you’ll contribute back and we’ll move forward in Rich Internet/Interactive Applications (RIA).

Throw away your code, trust me, you’ll be better next time.

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The desktop inside windows in my mind is like your desk in your office. It’s your surface area where you keep things that you can recall at a later date – “I’m going to put that TPS report in the upper right of my desktop surface, so i know where it is later”.

Problem today in software land is everyone keeps asking you to keep their TPS Reports on your desk and either you’re too lazy to agree/disagree or you didn’t notice they just did it. Pretty soon your desk is cluttered with lots of paper and it’s hard to find your chosen items vs.. everyone else’s.

Don’t abuse the desktop.

At present I’ve not seen an installation experience that tackles this problem other then a weak check box that is default checked (like somehow its important that you clutter my desktop) and that’s essentially your way out of this installation spam.

It doesn’t work really, as firstly you’ve got to be conscious of the fact that the checkbox is asking you “Would you like me to add to the clutter” and secondly making things “default checked” is an assertion really, much like “Push Polling” – it casts a prejudice up front and rarely have i seen actual self selection work.

Instead we should approach it differently. Instead of approaching it as a default checked item, allow the users to opt in manually and educate them on the power of the desktop itself and why it exists – as often I’d argue folks assume its simply part of the vortex of “things i don’t understand about my computer”.

e.g.:

Would you like to save this application shortcut to your desktop? Yes/No

The desktop is where you keep important information on your computer that helps you remember where things are – treat it like your desk in your home/work office.

Something like that anyway.

I’d argue the desktop today has fast become the wasteland of “icons that i’ve long forgotten” or “those icons that get in the way of viewing my desktop background”.

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How many kettles have you owned over the years? is it more than one? has it always been the same one?

It’s a pretty straight forward device, you fill it up with water, it heats up and then you tip the contents out into a container.

Why then are there so many varieties of Kettles? Why are there constantly new ranges or approaches to the Kettle that come out each year?

The answer lies in the fact that end users are like Kettle owners, each has a unique preference and taste towards something we often take for granted each day.

Each time a kettle is designed, it’s done so typically with an idea of who the end user is and how it could blend in with the rest of the owners kitchen style.

Software is no different to the kettle in many ways, its job is to blend in with the end users desktop, compliment their confidence level and ensure it upholds the core functionality required in order to carry out the task.

I all too often see folks go off the deep end with the User Experience in their RIA solution, and I often ask if they’ve stopped boiling water and are doing everything but that simple task.

Keep it simple; keep it fashionable and always think about User-Centric Design first, engineering second. You’ll find life gets easier that way.

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