UI/UX person and UX/developer person collaboration

I use a context-function approach:

  • context - function – parameters

Examples:

Std - TextEdit – Align: m-m - Text: Arial-12pt-black

LayoutCode - TextList – Align: l-m - Text: Arial-10pt-343434

Quite similar to what @harvest suggested.

It must be meaningful to both you and the dev.

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I use OTC for Orientation Top Center :slight_smile:
forgot to insert that one

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I am aware of the inspector limitation. Dev insists on using least acronyms or abbreviations as possible. My intention is to have it this way for now (when you don’t see, you can always click on rename to see the full text) and when I have time, I will code it and put the description in the file doc with the parameters description for reference.
eg:
WinF_Hdr| field/forDispl
CardL_FNav| btnb
WinF_Bdy| btnb/fakeTabs

I use two methods simultaneously. The first is to name for function, examples are Field Label, Column Header, Portal Header. The other is to describe styles, examples are Default, Default Small, Default Black. I use abbreviations in combination with those, a few examples given below.

One thing that I have found useful is to have several themes. A theme for user interface layouts and another for printing is the minimum. I prefer to have more themes that are more tightly focussed that have one massive theme.

One thing I don’t do is include font names. A theme has one font-family.

LA ( left align - default )
CA ( center align)
RA ( right align )
VT ( vertical top - default )
VB ( vertical bottom )
VC ( vertical centre )

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“What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months.”
– Fred Brooks

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Have you ever read a book named “The mythical man/month” ? It’s quite old and written by someone knowledgeable in software development. I am pretty sure many things would still apply today.

A few thoughts from the book:

  • Most software managers thing that if one developer needs 4 month to develop something, then 4 developers will do that in a month - he gave the example where a women needs 9 months to get a baby, then 9 women would do it in a single month, as an example on how false that is. Don’t laugh, I already had one boss thinking like this
  • Before thinking about V 2 and keep adding to V 1, release the f*****g V 1 and then build V 2.
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Excellent read.

Yep, “The Mythical Man Month” (2nd Edition, 1995) --> that’s Fred Brooks, my quote above. :slight_smile:

There are actually many data sources documenting making projects LATER by adding people later in the project.

Code Complete (MS Press), for example, documents many studies by IBM and others that have been around for more than 20 years.

Most companies don’t get it as many projects I’ve been on (typical by most I’ve read, sadly) are run by people who really don’t understand software development (or the “construction” metaphor).


“A primary cause of complexity is that software vendors uncritically adopt almost any feature that users want.”
- Niklaus Wirth

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Seems I’m going to be reading a lot next week: dev just threw (gently)
Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines on my desk!
:nerd_face:

I wonder if one can apply those guidelines to FileMaker. FileMaker UI is limited to FileMaker’s own controls - spare for WebViewers to mimic missing controls.The dev surely knows that.

Also, read anything from Alan Cooper. His UI books are great.

(Alan Cooper invented Visual Basic back in the day…)

If one considers the definite task of theme styles, one might realize individual style names could be as simple as; shape01, shape02, shape03, etc., text01, text02, text03, etc. What is paramount is to have every object assigned a style and a theme with enough styles to accommodate solutions which may likely grow in complexity of design. Growth sometimes starts as early as “this afternoon.”

Therefore, a convention of “shape01” could accommodate 99 styles of shapes. Filemaker sorts the lists alphabetically, thus the “01”. Also, just as grouping field names, grouping style names is important for both accuracy and convenience. In practice and over a short time, a codified system simply including numbers and can be learned because most themes may actually use very few styles in each style category anyway.

Themes are meant to be flexible and portable. Naming styles using definite attributes such as “Times 12 Bold Blue” or “Field Label Right” are examples contrary to the concept.

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:smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts::heart_eyes::smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

This is music to my ears! … As a former Word expert, template designer and addin developer in VBA, I breathe styles lol. I had developed a naming convention that enabled a functional user friendly styles palette. I created that initially for my mom a retired nurse (who did not know Word or document information hierarchy) and after two 3-hours training sessions with the tool, she was able to produce professional documents without any additional help or training as a writer or secretary. I even sold a prototype of the tool to a client. I wish I had had the means to finish development of the commercial version (85% completed) I’d probably have financial freedom by now instead of the debts of my failed venture to repay!

With FileMaker, there is an additional level of complexity because Styles do not cascade. If it was possible to specify a functional descriptor for each object, that metadata could be used to map functional descriptors to styles, making it a piece of cake to change styles solution wide.

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I’ve read them. They’ve done a few turn-arounds over the years. There are also the MS windows versions - which differs - I guess windows OS is for a different sort of human. Also, the early Apple guidelines were developed when people thought mice were rodents. Nowadays there are more touch screen devices than moused devices. Microsoft has some great materials online and some of the best information around for color.

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Lol trying to explain that to dev. He’s nostalgic about machine language… that should be a warning ;-p

5 posts were split to a new topic: How did you learn to program?

I’m more of a friend of readable and descriptive naming. Shape01 needs explanation. Convention with a string of attributes in abbrevations in the name IMHO is more useful espacially when working in bigger teams. Otherwise a translation is always needed.

The authoritative source of wisdom on project teamwork: Dilbert

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How about Dilbert’s boss ?

All - Ok most - IT managers should be forced to read Dilbert :laughing:.

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5 posts were merged into an existing topic: How did you learn to program?