Learning Repository?!

Yeah, it’s not an awesome name for a web app, but it’s accurate. Learning Repository is a catalogue system for learning objects.  Learning objects can be simple files, collections of files, things grouped together into a unit or module, or even complete courses. Most people in the industry refer to catalogues like this as LORs.  In our implementation, the search is super powerful, the integration with Learning Environment is seamless, the structure is ridiculously flexible, and the metadata management is … well, complicated and insane, but that’s where some of the best stuff is.

Fusion 2011

I’ll be doing four presentations at Fusion this year (see the schedule), and I invite anyone who is interested in learning objects, repositories, Open Educational Resources (OERs), harvesting metadata, federated searches, and any related topics to come by, or catch me in the comments.

Licensing and Rights Management for Learning Objects: What Next?

Monday @ 2:20pm in Plaza Court 1
Now that you can find and share more teaching materials online, navigating the complexities of licensing, copyrights and digital rights becomes a great challenge. Join in this focus group to discuss sharing and searching of learning objects, with all rights and privileges reserved, in Desire2Learn Learning Repository.

Administering Desire2Learn Learning Repository

Tuesday @ 8:00am in Plaza Court 3
Federated searches? Trust permissions? Harvesting other indexes? Managing Learning Repository can overwhelm even the most seasoned administrators. This session will provide hands-on experience with managing Learning Repositories, discuss options for indexing third party resources, share some best practices, and demonstrate the power of Learning Repository. (Full as of Thursday before Fusion … yikes)

Desire2Learn Learning Repository: See What’s New

Tuesday @ 3:30pm in Plaza Court 8
The Learning Repository team has been hard at work. This session will introduce the new functionality recently released for RSS notifications, options for publishing, version management, CourseBuilder integration, and more.

Being Ready for the World (World Readiness)

Wednesday @ 10:50am in Plaza Court 8
Technology has made it easier to reach global audiences, but with it comes language and cultural differences that need to be overcome. Desire2Learn technology offers opportunities from both an organizational and course design perspective to reach out to that larger audience effectively.  Co-presenter for Jeff Geurts from Learning Platform.

Short story: the hype stands up – the user experience of this phone is excellent.  There are small issues that I’ll go into in detail including frustrations with the hardware design, but ultimately the overall package is slick, functional, and at times even beautiful.

The Hardware

The physical hardware of the phone is a generally great.  The phone has a large, bright, and easy to read screen, a single recessed button, very few creases and edges that collect dirt or grime.  No MicroSD card slot, but lots of RAM.  Normal (3.5mm) headphone jack that took my iPhone mic’ed headphones just fine.  The light vibration you get when you touch the dedicated “back” and “search” areas reminds you that this device is very touch sensitive.  VERY touch sensitive.  In my first day or two of usage I pocket-dialed, Facebook’ed, mapped about half of my contact list – until I learned to lock the device every time I wasn’t explicitly performing an action (with the dedicated “lock” button).

The lack of physical keyboard made my transition from a Blackberry Bold difficult for typing-heavy tasks like email, though the live spelling correction works great.  The orientation sensing works well (smooth and predictable), so I learned to type my emails with the phone laying horizontally, with just a few lines of my reply visible outside the on-screen keyboard.

Compared to my Bold, the reception was weak.  I dropped out of 3G far more often than I’m used to.  The point here is that Blackberry devices have great reception, more so than the Samsung having poor reception.   Same goes with the battery life.  On a full-night charge I got 8-10 hours of normal usage including WiFi internet and calling at a business-user level.  Apparently that’s endemic for these large touchscreen devices.  Definitely not a showstopper, but news to me.

Search Button :(

Lastly, the dedicated search button got in the way far more often than I found it useful. For example when I was holding the phone with two hands when taking pictures with the Samsung’s excellent camera, I would accidentally press the search button and jump out of the Camera app into Bing Search.  Oh man, that happened about four times before I started digging through Settings to try to re-map (or at least disable) the search button.  No luck.  This is my least favourite feature of this phone, and I would gladly do away with it (or at least have it recessed so the click has to be more deliberate).

The Software

This is my first look at the Windows Phone operating system, and a it’s stunning piece of software.  The lack of fake 3D buttons was jolting and refreshing.  The home-screen Tile view is far more useful, customizable, and interactive than any other phone home-screen I’ve used.  Little features about the tiles were really nice: when you drag the screen the drag arrow gracefully rotates, the numbers for email counts flip rather than just changing, the text messaging tile gives me a wink ;-) with one message, and an Oh No! face :-O when I have four unread text messages. All of it seems refined, friendly, and inviting.

The Little Things :)

I started customizing my home-screen immediately – added all of my frequently-called friends to the home page, local weather, Twitter, Facebook, work Outlook (seamless), personal email (less than seamless).  After the second day, I rarely ventured past my home screen other than to browse Facebook and play with phone settings.

The ability to bundle contacts from your phone with ones from Outlook, together with their Facebook profiles was amazing.  My friend Mike has three different identities on my Blackberry (unless I go through contact-synch hell to combine them), while he has only one on my Windows Phone, which is hugely convenient.

One thing that is often not well executed on phones is a good range of alerts, alarms, and audio stuff.  It’s obvious that great care went into the audio landscape of the phone. The clicks, pings, boops sound downright beautiful.  The alarms are gentle but effective, rather than being grating and amateurish like some Linux sounds (*cough*).  The external speaker could be louder in phone-call-at-the-train-station situations.

Considering this phone and platform is new to the market, I was impressed by the availability of applications (as I read that is one of the fatal flaws of this platform).  I know that Microsoft has been shitting bricks about the app experience as it compares to the Apple App Store, but Facebook, Twitter, Score Mobile, Yelp, and many of my favourite heavyweights were there, and were executed pretty well.  There is no Google Maps application available, and the Marketplace in general has some obvious holes – Foursquare, for example, but apparently that’s coming soon and it’s hawt as hell. Bing Maps isn’t as good as Google Maps, as the location based searching for stuff sucks in Canada and elsewhere outside of the US.

The Facebook app doesn’t react as well as it does on the iPhone, as everything is clickable … while nothing is a button. There’s a theme of explicit “this will do this” actions being ambiguous in these apps, so I ended up changing screens and navigating away by accident – a side product of the really fluid and draggable design of the operating system.

While this may not be a highlight for a lot of people, the integration of Office viewers for Powerpoint, Word documents, and other documents was welcome.  The experience with attachments from within the email client was the best I’ve ever dealt with, and made both the Blackberry and Apple offerings seem Web 1.5.  This isn’t game-changing behaviour, but certainly helped me get over previously discouraging experiences with document-handling on my phone.

Overall Thoughts

The combination of the hardware and new Windows Phone 7 software is immediately slick and usable. Little touches such as the smooth transitions, crisp fonting, and contact linking are a pleasure.  The hardware such as the case and camera are first rate. The touch sensitivity of the device has forced me to pick up habits that I don’t love (locking the device constantly, being careful about interactions in Facebook, etc.) and the “search” touch button is infuriating when I’m in a hurry trying to take a photo. This being my first introduction to Windows Phone / Mobile 7, I am excited about its future.  If anyone is listening, bring on Google Maps and Skype, please :-)

Little Bugs

This is a list of bugs I came across that didn’t warrant being in the main review, but hopefully will get addressed as the platform matures:

• Something is off about the audio system.  Occasional jitters, noticeable when you’re playing games or are doing web browsing that involves sound, were a nuisance.
• You have to click “all” photos before being able to see the ones you took with your camera (“Camera Roll”), rather than having them show up on the front page of the Photos app.
• After the phone is unplugged from its charger, the little charge indicator stays on, sometimes until the phone is turned off.
• Making corrections to settings when setting up an email account requires you to retype everything on every retry.  Super annoying when you’re trying to debug your email connection.
• Can’t change which Windows Live account is associated with your phone unless you do a software reset?! A bit ridiculous.

The focus will be practical advice for designers and developers about building accessible web applications. Ali and I will have lots of examples of specific things that need to be considered in the design, development, and testing stages, as well as make a case for building with open standards. In general, the hope will be to provide attendees with a rich overview of the challenges, make A11Y less scary by sharing specific anecdotes.  It’ll be a design oriented presentation, but both Ali and I are versed pretty well in the technology if you care to Q&A!

We won’t be focusing a lot on the legal responsibilities surrounding accessibility. I find too many introductory discussions focus on the legal issues first, thereby mentally cheapening the problem to one of WCAG compliance. Accessibility is one of the most interesting user experience problems the web has to offer, so I feel it deserves a more nuanced design discussion.

So yeah, please register on the uxWaterloo site if you’re interested.

There’s also a Facebook event, if you want to share the news.  My lovely employer Desire2Learn will be hosting the event (it won’t be at the Accelerator Centre).  Looking forward to seeing you there!

I did a presentation yesterday about what I think is the single most important piece that was hardest for us to get right initially:  Sprint Planning.  Sprint Planning was initially difficult, as it was challenging for us to come up with Stories and Tasks that actually reflected the work we were going to do over the next two weeks.  The slides perhaps are not for people new to Agile, but if you have any understanding of sprints, stories, and tasks, it’s worthwhile to take a look at.

The Farmville Bug

No joke, Firefox pushed an update on a single bug. Last release they introduced this great feature that times out Flash applications if they take longer than 10 seconds to start up, thinking that anything that takes longer than that is probably crashing. Reasonable!

But Farmville often takes longer than 10 seconds to start up. Oh shoot. Flash developers that do run-time debugging destroy the 10 second limit. Double shoot!

Use Real Data!

It’s a cut-and-dry example of why you should use real data to make calls on design decisions. It’s a variation of the Lorem Ipsum Sucks argument. The “10 second” decision seems arbitrary, and kudos to Mozilla for doing the right thing and releasing a fix right away. It’s probably not the correct fix, as adding a friendly user prompt would be preferable to a low, fixed timeout. But hey, baby steps.

Databases + Metadata = Unsolved Problem

Metadata in databases loses its context quickly.  Let’s say Jen uploads an image, titles it “My pet puppy.”  Jen’s friend Steve wants to use the image, selects it in the image library and wants to change the title to “Jen’s pet puppy.”  Where do you store that title now?  What happens when Jen renames her image?  What if you use a couple copies of the same image, with a different title?  It’s a bit of a mess, but usually the solution is store the metadata in context: keep the metadata with each use of the image, in that HTML page.  Problem is, images don’t have a title attribute.

The other issue is maintaining those goddamn references between the database, the HTML file, and the image file. Odds are you’ll be using some database file system of some kind so now you have to manage deletions, renames, and metadata edits in three different linked places.  Those links are fragile, so things fall out of sync. Especially if users have access to editing their HTML source code, offline editing, import/export, anything like that.  So make sure to keep one authoritative copy of that data.

Lastly is the issue of exporting/sharing this content.  The platform that I work on has a strict requirement for being exportable without ruining everything, in order to keep a very important ($$) industry certification.  So when we export that web page, we don’t want to lose all of that image metadata.  We will if it’s in the database, unless you do a lot of non-standard hackery.  And we’d want to avoid non-HTML shit just to pass data around (a standard solution).

Microformats: Metadata, Inline, Bam

Really, a good way to do this is just store metadata inline, in the HTML content.  The best solution we found for this setup is using microformats.  The ideas that you wrap your object (an image, an object, a text block, whatever) with span tags that represent each one of the pieces of metadata.  There’s a much more verbose explanation on the microformats.org site.  The hCalendar format is good place to look for examples of this concept embraced.

So for our image example above, the HTML would look something like this.

<span class="image">
<img src="puppies.png" width="500" height="169" />
<span class="imagetitle">The puppies are st00pid fly.</span>
<span class="author hidden">Jen</span>
</span>

It’s pretty ingenious. You have the semantic relationship between the image and the imagetitle, and you can easily extend to add other information like the author, and keep that specific item hidden, or whatever.

Best thing ever is that since it’s semantically sound, you can do some magic with the CSS and DOM manipulations.  You can make it look pretty, keep it accessible, hack it with JavaScript in a reliable way.  Anywho, sometimes, it’s better than putting things in a database.

I asked an Egyptian co-worker what the URL was for the Egyptian Ministry of Communication .. I didn’t even know how to search for it. Here it is:

http://وزارة-الاتصالات.مصر/. Apparently the fonts I have butcher the script.

The URL looks good when I copy/paste, but it gets turned into Punycode: http://xn--4gbrim.xn----rmckbbajlc6dj7bxne2c.xn--wgbh1c, which magically still works. Anyone else have some insight into how this works?

In hopes of one day running WordPress and MediaWiki well on IIS, I’ve been collecting links.  First off, the simple recommendation is to just get the Microsoft Web Platform, which hopes to automate almost 100% of the process of PHP on IIS, including installing the FastCGI libraries that you’d probably want.

In case you’re trying to learn more about what’s actually going on, Bill S wrote up an extensive how-to for installing PHP on IIS.  From the folks behind PHP, the documentation on php.net is pretty detailed, especially if you’re working with an older set of servers (like Windows XP + IIS 5).  A detailed IIS 6 walkthrough can be found on the IIS Admin Blog.

Since this implementation uses CGI, and is still not as fast as the Apache+PHP stack, Ruslan has described how to make PHP faster on IIS using WinCache.  Performance seems to be a big concern, in general.

Somewhat unrelated, I found a place to get free IIS hosting for ASP (via this aspfree.com page).

Hopefully that helps someone!

I’ve also added a few SSIDs that are the hallmark of an unsecured network. I don’t put a password or try to hack anything, just hope to occasionally connect to a random unsecured network:

1. linksys
2. default
3. NETGEAR
4. Belkin54g
5. Wireless
6. dd-wrt

I based this list on the most popular SSIDs that wardrivers have found, as well as some local experience.

This has come in useful only once:  in the underground train station in Warsaw, where I had no data but some local restaurant had their WiFi open. :-)

So yeah, enjoy.

The presentation was about Sprint Zero: the lead-up work that is required before a team embarks on an Agile project, or any project that has an iterative nature with many stakeholders.

Bottom line was that in her experience, and in conversation she has had with designers at UPA, CHI:   Without the Sprint Zero and a Pre-Sprint, designers felt lost and products tended to “fail.”  Historically, Agile organisations have dismissed the need for a Sprint Zero.  In practice this has lead to designers that were disconnected from the final product.

For the rest of this summary, there are a few assumptions:

• Sprint One (first 2-3 weeks of development) typically doesn’t require much design.
• One project per designer. Any more than that, and it’s too much to deal with.
• All resources working on the project are full time on that project.  The definition of “project” was larger than at my workplace, but perhaps typical for industry:  ex. 5 devs, 3 designers, 3 QA, 2 documentation people, project manager, product manager.

Pre-Sprint Zero

Before Sprint Zero, there is actually a long pre-Spring Zero phase that that conceives of the project.  This is where the Executives, Sales, etc. get involved to offer insight, feedback, and direction.

• It lasts several months
• Anwsers marketing and sales need, defines the business scope.
• Creates the research that is used throughout the rest of the process, specifically identifies Personas.
• It includes the competitive investigation.

Sprint Zero

Sprint Zero itself is actually not very long, but focuses on an aggressive building of common ground and understanding amongs the stakeholders.  Without it, there’s a risk of no ”big picture” cohesiveness, early buy-in before complete understanding of the risks, and lots of  ”thrash.”

• Sprint Zero Lasts 1-2 weeks
• No coding, no designing: just big picture envisioning so that everyone understands.  Motto: “Maximise the amount of work not done.” – Create work, do not do any of it.
• Priorities are determined, though that they are difficult flush out in detail.
• Who is involved: PM, Design Lead, Dev Lead, Doc Lead, QA lead
• Get “just enough” that you have a “shared understanding” to begin design, development, test planning.

Steps in Sprint Zero

There are five steps to Sprint Zero.

1. Determine Shared Product Vision

If you haven’t done so yet, determine a vision for the whole product. This vision will not change throughout the life of the product. It helps keeps the project focused. TPM usually leads this, though external facilitation helps.

Do this by creating a “Vision Statement.”  The statement can have the following format:

For … <users>
Who … <do stuff>
NAME <name your product something useful>
Is a … <thing>
That … <does stuff>

Unlike … <competitor>
… <who does this>. (repeat)

2. Create a Project Objective Statement

Define an objective statement for this specific release. Used to make decsions against. Result of a 2 hour meeting, led by TPM.

“Remove the top obstacles that prevent people who download our product from purchasing it.”
“Kill 3DS Max.”

3. Flush out a Project Data Sheet

A product data sheet (of which there are many examples of online) create alignment between stakeholders  Answers the Who, What, Why?  Makes it easy to grasp fundamentals.  Unlike the previous steps, lead by the Development lead, with all stakeholders involved.

The PDS will include:

• Personas
• Object Statement
• Client benefits
• Tradeoff matrix:  Excel (perfect, immovable), Improve, Accept (flexible) vs. Features, Schedule, Resource, Stability
• Specific features defined as “able to ..” statements.   “Colour picker” is not a feature.  “Able to pick colours while drawing” is.
• Milestones and schedule.
• Prod architecture and performance considerations.
• Risks and risk management.

4. Define an Operational Model

At this point, you can get the team ready to go.  Physical planning is very important. Whiteboards, decisions on what remote software to use, determine what software for note taking. Physical environment is often neglected in planning.  Determine roles and procedures for the project.

• Led by Dev Lead.
• Determines meeting times and format (stand-up, scrums, formal, etc.)
• Good time to review “lessons learned” from last release: well, didn’t go well, surprises, expectations, etc.
• Who fills the customer role?

5. Have an Initial Planning Meeting

The first planning meeting is pretty intense.  It results in a speculative high-level schedule with sprints laid out.  It establishes priorities and accepted timeframes.  The “Able To” statements are broken down into chunks, which results in a planning board with story cards: Estimations, ”Able to” chunks, timeboxed.  List out employee vacation.

Once you have a first run of the schedule laid out, expect things to be more mutable as you move left to right.

The pieces on this schedule are called Story Cards and Feature Cards

• Tight estimates in “Feature Points.”  FPs are kinda like a “person day” but adjustable to the role, person, etc. Takes care of things like overhead, quantifiable to figure out your “velocity.”
• Story card is higher level, feature card is subset of story card.
• Each card is associated with a developer.
• Each card has an acceptance criteria from all the stakeholders: Docs, QA, Dev, Design.
• User Story cards can be used to illustrate strategy and tactics, but with loose estimates. There are things that are a bit too big or in the future to even break down. Usually things that can’t be estimated are user stories.
• Risk cards are used to identify specific risks.  Make these red. You can have specific risk cards, such as design risk cards, external dependency card, engineering/dev risk card.

These cards are place on the schedule in a timeline. Watch for janitorial staff re-prioritisations (ie. take pictures). The physical cards are moved to prioritise:

- Product requirement: must to nice
- Workflow: essential to additional
- Development Risk: high to low
- Dependencies: many depending on it to none
- Design risk: high to low

… and that’s it.  At this point, you’re in Sprint One and you’re following your Agile method with a shared understanding and lots of decision-making material.

Best Practices for Design in Iterative Environments

There were a few best-practices that could be taken away by designers, irrespective of the SDLC.

Design is always being done for the next cycle, before the developers ask for it. Special attention is paid to future high risk items.  This gives you time, and reduces pressure.

You have to pre-plan all your client visits, preferably during Pre-Sprint Zero.  Assume that you’re going to use them. Customers don’t mind seeing you over and over if you show them progress every time you see them.

Always go on site with at least two people: a project manager to see purchaser/client, and another UX person to get end-user access.  Those needs are different, and impact your design in different ways.

Every once in a while offer a more public larger release, such as a free preview, feature complete alpha, etc.  This may be hard to do, but is very worthwhile in holding trust and engagement from the customer.