Subject:
Microsoft Design Guidelines
Usability has become such an essential element of
good software design that competing companies have placed their guidelines on
the Web. Some of the more comprehensive guides come from Sun Microsystems, AOL,
Apple, Microsoft, CAIM/Yale (Yale University School of Medicine's Center for
Advanced Instructional Media), IBM, W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), and Mitre
Corp. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology / Rand Corporation).
To familiarize yourself with a typical presentation
of usability, browse through the following information from Microsoft.
Fundamentals of Designing User
Interaction
Microsoft has placed a book called Fundamentals of
Designing User Interaction in its MSDN (Microsoft Developers Network) Online
Library. The book contains the following sections.
GETTING STARTED
What's New?
The Importance of
a Well-Designed Interface
The Need for Improving Simplicity
Key Areas
for Improvement
Checklist for a Good Interface
--------------------
DESIGN PRINCIPLES AND METHODOLOGY
User-Centered Design Principles
Design Methodology
Understanding Users
Design Tradeoffs
--------------------
BASIC CONCEPTS
Data-Centered Design
Objects
as Metaphor
Putting Theory into Practice
--------------------
THE
WINDOWS ENVIRONMENT
The Desktop
The Taskbar
Icons
Windows
--------------------
INPUT BASICS
Mouse Input
Keyboard Input
--------------------
GENERAL INTERACTION TECHNIQUES
Navigation
Selection
Common Conventions for Supporting Operations
Editing
Operations
Transfer Operations
Creation Operations
--------------------
In the second section listed above (Design Principles and Methodology),
Microsoft explains basic usability concerns that you have seen in previous
lessons.
To view their information on User-Centered Design Principles, Design
Methodology, Understanding Users, and Design Tradeoffs, go to
Design Principles and Methodology
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/books/winguide/ch02a.htm
Usability Note:
To return to the main
section’s table of contents, use your browser’s Back button, or
click on the
Fundamentals of Designing User Interaction link at the bottom of the Web page.
--------------------------------------------------
MSDN Library
The MSDN Online Library also contains specific detailed design information.
To view an example of this, browse the Menus, Controls, and Toolbars links on
the following Web page. (Each of these links is a fairly lengthy topic, so you
may want to scan the figures and section titles.)
Menus, Controls, and Toolbars
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/books/winguide/ch08a.htm
