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!).

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.

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

Mike Benkovich
http://www.benkotips.com

CodeProject Posted on Wednesday, October 2, 2013 11:20 AM Unit Testing , BDD , Tools | Back to top