I was able to go to another great year of
HDC 13 at the beginning of September (on Twitter #hdc13). Our company sent 8 of us down for the Thursday and Friday (thanks for investing in us!).
The main theme I got from the conference was to get out and build an app or with the “internet of things” figure out how things work and look into Arduino and connecting for outside control. How do we use of skills for good as well?
The Bing platform looks very promising. There were also some Windows 8.1 demos which look like they’ve made some good steps. Adobe demoed Edge and Reflow and some upcoming improvements to Photoshop to quickly export css and images from a PSD file.
I attended some other very informative sessions. Here are a few of the highlights:
The Best of Web Forms
by Robert Boedigheimer
He demonstrated using PageAdapter to move view state to the server and use a base page, <deployment retail="true" /> in machine.config to avoid accidental debug=”true” release, bundling, new data binding and much more.
He uploaded the slides and code.
Agile in a Waterfall World
Philip Japikse from Telerik
When do you decide on something or define it? “At the last possible moment”.
- Courtesy and Respect
- documentation is "evil", "nobody ever updates them" –> write them when you know more
- Budgeting - fixed cost, duration
cost, scope and time
what's going to be in it "I have no clue"
don't slide the date, cost is time and people needed - Transparency and Honesty
- Inter-team Communication
- Sprint Review
- Where we are and aren’t
- give the users a copy of the software, hope they play with it
- Requirements
- Order items, everything is high priority or it wouldn’t be in the list of things to do
- Ensure Testability
- pass/fail, not fuzzy requirements
- Define Done
unit tests, comments
testing
acceptance testing - User Acceptance Testing
not last 2 weeks, too late to change things
beta's
allow bug reports and fixed
compels them to get involved and ownership = less critical - Sprint 0
prior to engaging the team
hardware
VM image
so they have something to do
acquire budget - Hardening Sprint
prior to release
documentation
more unit test for more coverage
There was more to this as well. I’m a fan of the Agile approach.
User Interface Top Tips
Drew Davies
"Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent." Joe Sparano
1. upper and lower case type everywhere possible
less "cognitive load on people's brain"
2. left align type
3. use just one sans serif font
no ears, feet, and toes sticking out
Times New Roman
bold, italic, regular if necessary
4. use icons functionally
where it's important to add emphasis and clarity to an action or piece of information.
stick to symbology that is already readily understood or imagery that is singular in meaning.
37 signals example
less may be better
it draws attention
5. use color functionally
consistency for same type of action or information
always back up color with a secondary indicator for users who may not recognize color.
6. Use clear, simple language
hard to pull off
state instructions and options as simply as possible.
use terms that are already familiar to the audience instead of interal jargon, etc.
7. Support process
clearly communicate where a user is in each process and provide feedback after each action is complete.
use tools such as breadcrumbs to id location if there are multiple levels of depth.
IKEA site example
8. Indicate relative levels of importance
relative size, contrast, and position to help the user focus on what is most important.
reflect the hierarchy.
9. Make use of white space
less to create a group
more to separate distinct groups
10. When in doubt, leave it out
simplify whenever possible
if you can't articulate why it is there, take it out
example: remove border lines and use space instead
"the reduction to the essential has never led to any catastrophes" Dieter Rams
* Don't forget about usability testing.
2-4 people
watch and observe
informal
think out loud
observe behavior
Demystifying the Identity Stack
Mike Benkovich
http://www.benkotips.com
Xamarin and Mobile Dev vs Hybrid talks
My takeaway: It depends on your situation
A few photo highlights:
CodeProject