User Experience Design : Personal Experience

Silverlight Resize Drag Behavior for targeted UIElements

Andries van der Meulen — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 23:19:02 GMT

I have been searching for a Silverlight behavior where you have the ability to resize a column. Normally you can do such a thing with a GridSplitter onto a grid with several columns.

Unfortunately this doesn’t work when you also wants to implement something like a hide and show menu column.

Therefore I created this behavior myself and released it on CodePlex. So if you are developing a Silverlight application and you find yourself in need of a simple behavior that allows you to resize an element by dragging either in height or width, go to the ResizeDragBehavior on Codeplex.

The solution also includes a sample project where you can see how you can easily setup a menupanel-based interface.

The behavior is fully compatible with Expression Blend.

In Control

Andries van der Meulen — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:55:49 GMT

What I realize more and more is that the end-users wants to be In Control. This applies especially with new developed applications that automates some of their work. By default users are skeptic. The application have to earn their trust. The more they get the feeling they are not in control, the less trust and the less acceptance of your newly developed product.

Only when the product doesn’t automate or replace existing work, an employee is likely to accept the application more easily. But still you first have to prove it and earn the users trust.

So what can you conclude from this:

At the moment you are working on a project that will automate a part of the users work, try to learn how he does that work, and don’t take away his flexibility. It´s allright that the application makes decisions and perform actions that he normally did, but certainly in the first releases, let him be the one that controls the final action.

For example when it comes to communication with customers. Originally he had to write and send the emails by hand. A desired functionality of the application is to do this automatically. A good approach to fully reach this functionality is to split it in several releases.

In the first release make sure the user can see all the emails that are about to be send, let him edit the emails if he likes to, and let him push the button that finally sends the mail. The user can see what the application is doing, and will build some trust with it.

So in the second release you extend this functionality with a scheduler and a “do send” / “do not send” checker. The user have to “check” the emails for “do send” and they are send automatically on a configurable time. The user can see if the scheduler works and that the emails are send correctly. So the trust in the application increases more.

In a third release all the emails are set default to “do send”, and the scheduler sends them every half our (or something). The user doesn’t really have to look to the emails anymore, because he now trusts the functionality of the application. He still has the possibility to go and check the emails, alter them, deny them or disable / configure the scheduler.

If you do it this way, the user feels he is In Control. So the acceptance of the new product is much higher then if you fully automate the sending of email, but nobody had the ability to check or prevent what is being send.
Even if a system is flawless and everything is working exactly as designed, there will always be exceptions in the process. And if the users don’t feel they can do anything about it, they get the feeling they are not in control. It is very likely that your new application won’t be accepted.

Just make your users feel they are In Control!

OS Desktop Experience

Andries van der Meulen — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 05:58:54 GMT

The other day I was talking about how exactly the transition will be when switching from mouse/keyboard to touch when it comes to the User Experience. For example your operating system desktop. And then I came across this promotional video of BumpTop.com. Really nice!

Desktops are very personal, so I really don’t expect that the majority will use this. But it really is a nice approach that I simply just couldn’t ignore.

p.s. Sorry for not being able to embed the video in the page. Something with the blog-engine.

Windows 7

Andries van der Meulen — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:03:13 GMT

I’ve been using Windows 7 Enterprise (RTM) for about a week now, and I must say, I really see the benefits of working with it. Although you might consider it “Windows Vista +”, I’m sure that there’s still plenty of new features I haven’t noticed yet.
But for the end user (like me) there are a couple of things that I’ve used now (whether it’s desired or not). Here is an overview of these features for those who are thinking about using this new OS.

Taskbar
For those who didn’t know yet, Microsoft changed the way the “start-bar” works. It’s now called Taskbar and it has combined the Quick-launch and the Active-programs part.
When you’re working with it the first time, you kinda get to used to it first. But after you’ve configured it, it’s working just fine. Although I sometimes miss a quick overview of all my open windows (especially explorer-screens), the preview mode you see when hovering over the group is pretty neat (Seeing all your Internet Explorer tabs in the taskbar). But I wonder if it is faster when switching between screens, because you first have to see the group, then selecting the window. On the other hand, your Taskbar is now much more organized.
If you want to read more about the new Windows 7 Taskbar you can view this blog post.
Docking
A feature I'm using frequently is the docking feature. This allows you to drag a window to the side or top of the screen where it will be resized to a specific portion of your screen. (you can also use the Windows-Button in combination with an Arrow-key)

Especially when trying to copy file’s between two explorer windows you can dock each to a side of the screen. Or when you’re writing a document where you will use different resources (other documents, internet browser, tooling, etc.).
This feature is something I’ve missed in previous versions and I’m very happy that this is implemented in Windows 7.
Window Transparency
When using Alt-Tab, hovering over a screen in the Taskbar or hovering over the Desktop button, the active windows become transparent.
Maybe this is not really useful, but more a “pretty” feature. Tough with alt-tab or the hovering in the Taskbar it comes in handy to let you focus on the particular window. Be aware when on large monitors, because when hovering quickly over different windows, all these fast changes can make you dizzy!
Desktop button
The desktop-button (or Windows-button in combination with D) is not really something new. But the change is they’ve now placed it in the right-bottom corner.

I used the “show desktop” function very often in the XP and Vista, but always with the shortcut, because finding the button with your mouse took too much time. Now they’ve changed this, and that’s a good thing. Just throwing the mouse to the corner is a lot easier.
The transparency kicks in when hovering above it, so you can see what's on your desktop. Now you can see the icons and (sidebar) gadgets. By the way; this is also what happens when using the Windows-button with the Spacebar. In Vista this showed the Sidebar. Now it makes all the active windows transparent.
Integrated fingerprint reader
As the Windows OS evolves, additional functionality becomes a standard part of the OS. This also applies the the fingerprint support.

Instead of using 3th party software, you now can use your reader directly with Windows. And I must say, It works quite well. It’s faster and more stable then what I used to have on Vista. Although I first had a little issue with the Ctrl+Alt+Del when logging-on which I explain next.
Ctrl+Alt+Del
When using your computer in a Domain like I do for my work, you have to use the Ctrl+Alt+Del for entering your username and password.
Although this isn’t really a problem, I did not have to do this when I used Vista. It's annoying in combination with the fingerprint reader. Because it’s not possible to scan when you haven’t pressed the Ctrl+Alt+Del yet (this also applies when locking your computer). And when you’re fingers are already on the keyboard, it’s just as easy to enter your password.
After a bit of research I found out that you can actually remove this extra action through Local Security Policy (run “secpol.msc”).
There you can find the option “Interactive logon: Do not require CTRL+ALT+DEL” in “Local Policies” > “Security Options” . When setting this to Enabled you’ll remove it.
Early adopters = Driver problems.
When you’re an early adopter, you will encounter the problem with missing or incompatible drivers. But just after installing I’ve encountered only 2 problems. Video-card drivers and the Card-reader drivers.

I were able to fix the Video-card drivers by installing the Vista-drivers and then using Windows Update because it could now identify the Video-card.
The Card-reader doesn’t have downloadable drivers, because in Vista it was installed automatically by the OS. It’s quite odd that now with Windows 7 it didn’t install by default.
Fortunately I don’t need the reader now, but I do hope that in time drivers will be made available by the manufacturer.

For the time I’ve worked with this new OS I think I made the right choice for switching to Windows 7. It certainly has benefits that I use. And with the driver problems… Well, I expect it’s just a matter of time. You can always try using the Vista-drivers.

User Experience Design : Personal Experience

Silverlight Resize Drag Behavior for targeted UIElements

In Control

OS Desktop Experience

Windows 7

Taskbar

Docking

Window Transparency

Desktop button

Integrated fingerprint reader

Ctrl+Alt+Del

Early adopters = Driver problems.