Michelle Yaiser

Best Practices for Designing RIAs

Michelle Yaiser — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:59:59 +0000

These best practices come from an eight part series written in the fall of 2007. Although the series was written specifically for designing applications in Flex 3, this list is a general list of best practices for improving user experience. I stumbled across hard copies of the series while going through some files this afternoon. Some of the examples are dated, but the core information is still relevant and applicable.

Whether designer or developer, we can not forget or lose sight of the users' experience. Too many times UX is sacrificed for other priorities. We can't all be Microsoft - if we ignore our users, we will no longer have users.

Designing for Flex - Best Practices

Variables

Michelle Yaiser — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:41:27 +0000

One of the classes I teach is a freshman introduction to object oriented programming. I teach it using AS 3 and Flex Builder. Unfortunately, there are no textbooks that teach object oriented programming to brand new programmers in AS 3. So I write a series of handouts.

In the degree program, Web Design & Interactive Media, all students learn the core concepts and skills of web design, web development, information architecture, and usability during their first four semesters. Hopefully by that point, they have figured out where their interests and talents lie and they take the appropriate advanced electives during their last four semesters. What this means for my intro to oop class is that I have a mix of students who have some programming experience and want to focus on development and students who have never written code (with WYSIWYG editors, many have never even written HTML or CSS) and have absolutely no interest in development. It can be a challenge to say the least.

The mix of students means that the handouts have to be written at a level that new programmers will understand. This is not a computer science degree so they also don't contain many of the actual details of how programming/computers work (pointers, stacks, etc.). And certain things have to stressed more than others for a population who has grown up IMing, texting, and Facebooking (is that even a word?) where "close enough" is good enough when it comes to spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Many students really struggle with the fact that every character they type matters and there are certain rules they just have to follow.

I'm posting the first handout I give on an introduction to variables. I know many of you are well beyond this basic introduction. But maybe some could use a refresher. A few of the emails I've received lead me to believe that a few readers are brand new to oop. So, I'm going to try to balance the RIA development material with an intro/review of oop concepts. If this mix doesn't work, just let me know. Otherwise, happy coding!

Variables Part I

Getting Back to It

Michelle Yaiser — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:08:20 +0000

Since my last post, life has been full of unexpected opportunities and challenges. They’ve left me with very little time to work on the application I planned to write about here.

Now, the time has finally come to get back to work on this app. This semester I’ll be co-teaching an advanced rich internet application development class and using this application as a teaching example. Students in the class will be working in development teams of three: designer, developer, and project manager. Each team will design, build, and release an RIA by the end of the semester. Each student will be required to be either the designer or the developer for a team and will also have the opportunity to serve as project manager for another team. My colleague Chris MacDonald will be working with the designers in Flash Catalyst. I will be working with the development students in Flash Builder. Together we will be talking about project management, version management, client relations, etc. while working together on sample applications. Its going to be a lot of work, but I’m looking forward to it.

Part of the preparation I have been doing for this class has focused on improving my (somewhat non-existent) design skills. Through years of teaching, I have developed a decent eye for critique, but I need to improve my ability to create or tweak a design. So, I started by rereading Robin Williams Non-Designer’s Design & Type Books. Then I stumbled upon what quickly became my new favorite design resource: Jason Cranford Teague’s Fluid Web Typography. This is a brand new (2010) publication from New Riders that covers web typography and design principles and a variety of current and new techniques for implementing your designs. Thanks to Dale Cruse, I have also been using (OK, just playing so far) Think Ink:Color Unleashed on my iPhone. I forsee someday using this nifty app to create a color palette for my website from the paint job on my race car. I still have a long way to go, but at least I’m one step closer to no longer using the default styles when I build a UI in Flex/Flash Builder.

Classes start next week. Building applications, co-teaching for the first time, and using beta software in the classroom should provide plenty of interesting posts.

Requirements – Part 1

Michelle Yaiser — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:07:41 +0000

Its the end of another semester (yes we go year round) which is always a very busy time. I just haven't had time to finish the post on descriptions, requirements, and user stories I intended to have up this week.

Instead, here are two oldies but goodies that are related to that unfinished post. Enjoy!

Coffee-Stained Resources

Michelle Yaiser — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:31:54 +0000

I'm frequently asked to recommend resources. Some of the most helpful online resources are blogs. I've included all the ones I subscribe to in my blogroll. Other online resources I use include the Adobe Flex Cookbook, the Adobe Developer Connection and lynda.com.

I also like to have a good book or two within reach when I'm working. I know that makes me old school to some but I like the tangible experience of highlighting text, jotting notes in the margins, "dog-earing" pages, and having multiple books open on my desk to compare explanations, sample code, etc. And I can spill coffee on a book without doing any serious damage.

Here are the books I tend to reach for while building a database driven RIA. Many of these books are also required or recommended reading for my classes. This is by no means an exhaustive list or a list of the "best" books. Its simply a list of books you are likely to find me using while I work.

What do you use?

What will this be about?

Michelle Yaiser — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:25:17 +0000

Frequently when people find out what I teach, a how-to question or an email with buggy code attached isn’t far behind. Lately there’s been an interesting change in those questions and emails. Rather than asking me to find the bugs in their code or how to code something, people want me to tell them where they went wrong now that they are “stuck” in a half-finished project. Others tell me about ideas for RIAs that they don’t know how or where to start building. Some are generally overwhelmed by the idea of building an entire application.

I’m familiar with these issues. I’ve struggled with them. I watch students struggle with them almost every semester. I’ve worked through these issues and have helped students work through them too. This experience has taught me that most of the time these issues are related to application design and development – actually, the lack thereof. Without having a solid understanding of what needs to be done and a plan for how to achieve it, successfully completing projects on time and on budget is much more difficult.

There are a number of good resources on the various topics of application design and development. However, most of those resources use Java, or Rails, or a C based language in the examples. Many people building an RIA with Flex/ActionScript don’t consider using those resources due to the language difference.

Please correct me if I’m wrong – I don’t know of any ActionScript or Flex resources dedicated to application design and development. Joey Lott and Danny Patterson’s Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns does includes a chapter on designing applications. Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0 by Elst, Jacobs, and Yard includes chapters on planning and project workflow. On his blog, Ted Patrick has some good posts related to problem solving, application design, and development workflows. Each of these resources are extremely valuable, but none provide an in-depth, soup to nuts discussion of application design and development.

So that’s what I’m going to try to do here. I’m about to start building a new RIA and will document the entire process in a way that will hopefully be helpful to some. Starting with the idea and ending with deployment, I’m going to show how I work through the entire design and development process. Please ask questions, make suggestions, and share your own experiences.