User eXperience (UX) Guidelines

“Everything is best for something and worst for something else.
The trick is knowing for what, when, for whom, and why.” — Bill Buxton

Found some interesting resources on user experience, and user interface designing, during past few weeks. after goin thru all these I realized that most of our designs are crappy and there are much much .. and much more to think before getting into conclusions!!! :-(

MIX09, Day 1 keynote featuring Bill Buxton and Scott Guthrie, Return on experience – By design
http://mschannel9.vo.msecnd.net/o9/mix/09/wmv/key01.wmv

Infragistics, one of the best UI composers have published a Silverlight application compiled with all the UI patters with samples screenshots. You can surf thru the patters, search for a pattern and explore it!

Infragistics, Quince UI Patterns
http://quince.infragistics.com/#/Search

MSDN, Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/1/9/e191fd8c-bce8-4dba-a9d5-2d4e3f3ec1d3/ux%20guide.pdf

MIX08, The Story of The Ribbon
http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX08/UX09

I think most of the areas have been covered by Microsoft UX Guidelines document. However, I thot of having some general usability lesson as well;

UIPatterns, User Interface Design Pattern Library
http://ui-patterns.com/

UXBooth, 10 Usability Lessons from Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think
http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/10-usability-lessons-from-steve-krug%E2%80%99s-dont-make-me-think/

UXBooth, 5 Tips to Make Your Headings More User Friendly
http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/5-tips-to-make-your-headers-more-user-friendly/

UXBooth, 5 More Tips to Make Website Headers More User Friendly
http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/5-more-tips-to-make-website-headers-more-user-friendly/

UXBooth, Quick Usability Checklist
http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/quick-usability-checklist/

SuperPreview: IE6,7,8 to test my web apps

I found this new web app browser test tool ships with Microsoft Expression Web 3. Its standalone version is now available for FREE.

One of the cool things that I noted about this tools is that, now we can test IE 6,7, and 8 version on a single machine and no longer to have a VM, or to have another blocks in order to compare versions between them.

MIX09, Expression Web SuperPreview!
http://visitmix.com/News/Expression-Web-SuperPreview

Expression Web, An Introduction to SuperPreview
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/ee426934.aspx

MS Downloads, Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview for IE
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8e6ac106-525d-45d0-84db-dccff3fae677&displaylang=en

Expression Web, Identifying the Source of Layout Problems in SuperPreview
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/ee426937.aspx

Expression Web, Defining Baseline Browsers and Comparing Image Mock Ups in SuperPreview
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/ee426935.aspx

Expression Web, Download the assets, step-by-step guide, and video package (46.9MB)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/3/4/F343C86B-FEE4-4448-8715-CA768BB305FE/ExpressionWeb3_SuperPreview_StarterKit.zip

Learn Scrum within 10 mins

I have stolen this video from Hamid @ axosoft.com. Its pretty neat and a quick demo about Scrum. Worth watching it.

 

Find more about Scrum from Scrum.org and also there some tools available in Codeplex.com, that helps automate things up to certain extend.

Scrum.org, Scrum Guides (Download)
http://www.scrum.org/storage/scrumguides/Scrum%20Guide.pdf#view=fit

Codeplex.com, Tackle: web-based Scrum tracking site with rich set of features
http://tackle.codeplex.com/

Codeplex.com, Scrum Dashboard: web client front-end for Scrum for Team Foundation Server
http://scrumdashboard.codeplex.com/

Windows Workflow Foundation, WF, and WCF

Thot followings might be good resources for .NET 3.5 Workflow, and Workflow as a Service.

MSDN, David Chappell, Introducing Windows Workflow Foundation, Chappell and Associates
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee210343.aspx

OdeToCode.com, K. Scott Allen: Answers to WF Interview Questions
http://odetocode.com/blogs/scott/archive/2007/10/31/answers-to-wf-interview-questions.aspx

Guy Burstein, Execute Windows Workflow Rules without Workflow
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/bursteg/archive/2006/10/11/RuleExecutionWithoutWorkflow.aspx

Guy Burstein, Build workflow rules using Code Dom and Rules API
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/bursteg/archive/2006/12/04/RulesWithCodeDom.aspx

MSDN, Learning Workflow Foundation
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee373755.aspx

MSDN, Selecting Workflow Type
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd756424.aspx

MSDN, How to Choose Your Workflow Model in WF
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768563.aspx

MSDN, Windows Workflow Foundation: Creating a Custom Composite Activity
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd177566.aspx

MSDN, WF Scenarios Guidance: SharePoint and Workflow
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc748597.aspx

MSDN, WF Scenarios Guidance: Presentation Flow
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd557867.aspx

MSDN, WF Scenarios Guidance: Human Workflow
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709416.aspx

MSDN, WF Scenarios Guidance: Workflow Services
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc825354.aspx