14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Vista came very close to featuring the frustrating product syndrome. Even before the operating system was made available to the general public, the level of limitations introduced by the User Account Control was blown out of proportions. Those not in direct contact with Windows Vista received a great deal of noise related to the high level of frustration inherent with the Vista UAC. A hands-on experience with Vista will clearly demonstrate that the UAC is not an issue. It does add to the security of the platform, but with a balance between usability and user "frustration." The "How to Design Frustrating Products" will offer just the opposite of the title, an insight into how not to build frustrating software.
"In the software business, poor product design can lead to frustration and wasted time for our customers. Although we can ignore "usability" and "good design" without negatively impacting the initial success of a product, sales and customer satisfaction will suffer in the long run. Usability is a topic that has been discussed at great length, but many of the accepted design conventions either lack explanations of where and how to apply them, or they are entirely untrue," reads a fragment of the "How to Design Frustrating Products" description.
The session will be presented by Sanjeev Verma and Kendra Yourtee at the Better Software Conference and Expo in Las Vegas, during 18-21 June 2007. Sanjeev Verma is a software developer and Kendra Yourtee is a User Interface (UI) Project Manager at Microsoft.
"Sanjeev Verma explains how to ignore usability and save valuable time during the design phase of a product and apply it where it really counts-on new feature development. Kendra Yourtee offers proven practices that she has used in her daily routines to improve the usability of products as they are updated. She discusses simple ways to "test" designs against real data before the software is complete. Kendra presents six key ideas that you can use at any stage in the product development cycle to help design better products and applications," the synopsis of the session also informs.