User Interface

A shift in focus

Chip Lemmon — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 03:50:23 GMT

Well for those of you who follow me and my blog (and who doesn't); a major life change signifies a shift in focus on this blog. For over a year I have been a big proponent of good User Experience. But as I have made some very deliberate decisions in my career I am assuming a role as a Scrum Master and Delivery Manager. I will still have architectural responsibilities too. So to be true to the principles of software design that I believe in, I will stay true to User Experience in my new roles, I just may not blog about it so much.

As I exit stage left from the forefront of User Experience I just have to say that the term User Experience has been over used and misused by so many. The real misuse of "User Experience" came about with the introductions of WPF and Silverlight in my opinion. Now don't get me wrong, these two technologies certainly do enhance the beauty and functionality of an application. However to me User Experience is more than skin deep. The User Experience is really all about the psychology of the user in relationship to the software they are using. It is about the user's perception of ease of use, the software's ability to keep the user on task and the conversation that ensues between the two.

I've said it before in this blog, the User Experience is not owned simply by the UI designer/developer. The User Experience is the shared responsibility of the entire development team and begins at project inception. UX must be a first class citizen during solution architecture and remain so through presentation development and delivery.

--chaz

I can see the light -- Silverlight 2.0

Chip Lemmon — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:31:57 GMT

Silverlight 2.Oh My God! Shawn Burke posted about his endeavors with Silverlight 2.0 and he says one very important thing... "I'm having fun!" Man that is what it should be about. Programming should be fun and not a hassle. I am expecting some instant gratification from Silverlight 2.0.

Shawn also points to Scott Gu's blog. If you aren't watching that blog like a hawk already you really need to subscribe. Not to be overly dramatic, but coming from a thick client background, Silverlight 2.0 is going to change my world!!!!

--chaz

User Interface Smackdown 2007

Chip Lemmon — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:01:00 GMT

As I had mentioned in my review of the NJUX meeting the User Experience movement seems to still be in its infancy stages. So I am psyched to see things like Josh Holmes' blog about the User Interface Smackdown 2007. These are exactly the types of meetings and conversations that need to happen to bring more momentum and attention to the User Experience.

It was also great to see that the attendees were cross vendor (Microsoft & Adobe). This is a reaffirmation for the NJUX that we need to be cross vendor and cross discipline.

--chaz

NJUX Re-cap

Chip Lemmon — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 15:01:00 GMT

The NJUX meeting was a great event. Thanks to everyone who turned out! A big lesson learned is that South Orange may not be the most ideal location to get to. We'll need to figure out a new location when the time is right.

There was some really meaningful dialog about just what a "User Experience" group should focus on. The consensus seemed to be that User Experience (especially in the Enterprise) is still in its infancy. So that will bring some challenges to the group. Some of the ideas that came from the meeting follow;

The group must engage the designer & developer communities. Presenters will be challenged to address both communities.

The presentations (at least for the first year) should be at Level 200 (aka introductory).

WE NEED TO BE VENDOR NUTRAL. I will always evangelize Microsoft technologies because that is my background and how I have made a living for countless years. But, when it comes to the User Experience there are vendors like Adobe that cannot be overlooked!

There will be a lot of UX news coming out of the upcoming Mix '07 Conference in May. This will give us plenty to cover as we kick off the group in a more formal meeting location. KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR MIX, IT IS GOING TO ROCK!

The overarching message for the group will focus on designers and developers working closely together. Similar to Agile's paired programming I think we have to realize that the User Experience isn't a singular responsibility. Better User Experiences will come from collaborative work between the developer and designer. A major challenge for us is to figure out how to get the designer community to come out and join the group. If anybody has any recommendations please post them here or e-mail me through this blog.

A really great discussion we had Thursday night is about how to make the User Experience relevant in back office Enterprise applications. The challenge for the design & development community is to show stake holders that a significant ROI may be appreciated by well designed back office applications as well as customer facing ones. And as someone had pointed out just putting a pretty UI on a terrible application will not make the application any better. So as User Experience creators we need to challenge ourselves not to masquerade crappy architectural practices with pretty UIs.

NJUX will take a pause while we watch for the news from Mix 07 and watch Adobe’s Apollo mature (still in Alpha release). Then we will plan and collaborate to put together some great content that will get folks excited about UX technologies.

Who knows, we may even look to host some sort of kick-off event to show off some of the best stuff from Mix. The event will embody the true spirit and purpose of NJUX.

Keep watching this blog for more on NJUX!

--chaz

NJUX Meeting TONIGHT!

Chip Lemmon — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:31:00 GMT

NJUX Meeting 3-22-2007

Chip Lemmon — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:33:00 GMT

Just a reminder that the kick off NJUX meeting will be tomorrow at the GasLight Brewery on South Orange Avenue in South Orange New Jersey. I hope to see you there!!!!

--Chaz

It is all about the SWAG!

Chip Lemmon — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:08:00 GMT

Peter Laudati asks a very interesting question... Why do you or don't you attend a user group? It's all about the SWAG! You know the goodies they give out at user group meetings... software, tee-shirts, and pizza...

Actually this is a really great question to ponder as I am trying to start a new user group (NJUX) myself. Why... why go through the trouble of setting up a meeting place, scheduling speakers and coordinating with other user groups.

Well as Paul Kimmel so eloquently states a lot of it has to do with being around like minded people. There are just certain things you can't talk about to people outside of the industry. And being a consultant, sometimes that is a huge void that needs to be filled both socially and professionally. I think a user group provides a great place to get that kind of interaction. Something you can't get from a web-cast. So yes I am tired after a long day of work and I may even need to boot up after a meeting and burn the midnight oil. But for a couple of hours per month I get the social and professional interaction I need to feel a little less isolated.

And then there are the speakers. Yeah sure you can see them on a web cast or read their blogs/white papers, but how amazing is it to talk to somebody that helped invent SQL Server, WPF, Vista... etc. Being able to interact with somebody so overwhelmingly smart that they aren't working on the current technology, they are developing the next two generations of that technology is mind blowing. Live presentations are by far superior to watching a video or reading an article. It is the difference between TV and HDTV!

So to expand upon Peter's question, why am I trying to start the New Jersey User eXperience (NJUX) group? Well for one thing I think people are less likely to go to a user group meeting if they have to travel too far from their job or home to get there. So I am trying to fill a geographical void for myself as well as others. Secondly, User Experience is so critical to most everything we do and yet it has been given so little emphasis until recently. Let's face it; we can build the most brilliant software that does the most amazing things, but if people are not drawn to using it for its simplicity and beauty it will fail. Presentation matters.

I hope you go to a user group near you. If you don't I hope you think about doing it. Your time is a small price to pay for so many benefits.

--chaz

NJUX Meeting

Chip Lemmon — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:13:00 GMT

HEY JERSEY (especially New York City commuters)!

I've talked and talked about it. Well here it is and it will be in an unlikely location!

WHAT: New Jersey User eXperience Group kick off meeting

WHERE: GasLight Brewery,

15 S Orange Avenue
South Orange, NJ 07079

WHEN: Thursday March 22nd @ 6:30 PM

WHY: This will be the organizing meeting for NJUX. We will determine our mission statement & goals and set up a regular meeting schedule, determine speakers(topics) and final location city/town.

I picked the GasLight in South Orange because SO is far enough up the train line that I think we can draw more attendees. I also think that SO is a bit more accessible by car than Berkeley Heights (my original meeting site). But based on group feedback we will make a final decision.

So come on out and make this thing happen! Many of the usual NJ suspects may be there depending on availability.

Oh and against the advice of my good friend Don, in lieu of swag I will purchase the first round for each attendee (offer expires at 7PM sharp!).

http://www.gaslightbrewery.com/

Please post this on your blogs!

--chaz

Microsoft Expressions NYC Launch

Chip Lemmon — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 04:06:00 GMT

From the minute I walked in the door, I could tell this was no developer tool launch. Or at least that is what Microsoft wanted us to think. The MS Expressions Launch in NYC was like no other that I had been to. There was Feng Shui, ambient music, artsy furniture, studio lighting at the top of 7 World Trade in a giant 52 floor studio. Actually some debated if it was just a completely unfinished floor or if it was suppose to be an art studio.

Well no matter the atmosphere when it came to the business of pitching and demoing MS Expressions it was back to Microsoft basics. I hung out with Rob Zelt who may blog his own opinions, but he brought up some very good points that I missed. I will start out with a two thumbs up, but I'm an easy sell on this one. I really am a big fan of the product line {funky little quarks and all}. The one mistake from my perspective was that typical Microsoft, they took a very cool product, in a very cool atmosphere and Geeked it up. When more than half the audience was designers, start with the art man! Don't tell me about WPF, .Net 3.0, ASP.NET with AJAX 1.0 and all the technology that makes this so great.... Show me 3D, show me animation, show me shadows! Well they did get around to that stuff too, but I just think the Geek speak should have followed a grand entry. Instead I think they tried to hold the bang for the Grand Finally.

Anyway, I am jazzed about Expressions Blend! Finally a cool, industrial power design tool for the "rich client" UI. Somebody finally realized that the rest of the world has been totally distracted with something called the Web {fad} and everybody has totally neglected the client application. Well Blend rocks. The capabilities given to us with Blend are just amazing. My favorite is simply the ability to grab a dll from your app, and bind to public properties. I know I am not doing this justice. You really need to see it. But take the functionality of your custom business objects and put a Picaso UI on top of it {think beyond winforms, way beyond} and I think you'll be stoked too.

The Expressions Web is also very cool and coincidently is the only product in the suite that is actually available for purchase right now. The other parts of the suite, Expressions Blend, Expressions Design and Expressions Media will be ready in the 2nd Quarter of 2007. But you can get Betas of the tools at the Expressions Web Site. Beta 2 of Blend was just released today. I heard they cleaned up a lot in Beta 2. I can't wait to download it.

Now the one thing everybody needs to keep straight in their head is that although Expressions works with the same solution, project and class files as Visual Studio, Expressions is NOT a VS plug-in. It is a stand alone app. The reason for this is that Expressions is targeted toward designers NOT developers. Designers tend to follow a very different work flow than developers. And therefore their tools need to be different.

Well as a developer with no design staff, I guess I will become or already am as Adam Kinney calls it a "devigner". I really like the term, because honestly I can't imagine corporations allocating a budget for designers on internal applications. In most cases I do see the designer role more applicable to customer facing applications and web sites. But just as many of us have BA/Architect {Barchitect... okay maybe I'm stretching it} or the Architect / Developer I do believe in the ever shrinking IT budget realm we are already Developer/Designers. But now we have some really great tools to use to do our job a little better.

Hopefully some day I will be lucky enough to get that Utopian team of a BA, Architect, Designer, Developer and PM. But for now I will continue to where as many hats as will fit on my head without falling off. And thankfully there is another tool in the shed to make the job a little easier. I recomend that you go play with Expressions today.

--chaz the devigner ;)