 |
|
At iRise, we have been preaching for many years that words by themselves do a poor job of defining the requirements for software applications. So, it’s refreshing to see someone else – especially a Forrester analyst – pile on to the discussion.
Tom Grant, a senior analyst in the Technology Marketing group at Forrester, published a research document this week titled “Improving Your Product Management Tools”. While the note is targeted at product marketing and management professionals, the roles and tasks performed by these workers have significant if not total overlap with business analyst and usability professions.
The problem is actually double-edged. According to Tom, “most product managers rely on tools – predominantly Microsoft Office – that do not adequately support them.” And while there are tools specifically designed to handle product requirements, the majority of technology companies do not embrace them.
Tom further identifies 6 functions needed to address the requirements challenges for product managers and describes the shortcomings of trying to use Microsoft Office, Web 2.0 tools and CRM systems:
- Collection
- Analysis
- Prediction
- Connection
- Communication
- Updates
By the way, iRise was mentioned as one of the tools for the Communication function which Tom defines as modeling or simulating use cases to communicate to stakeholders.
Tom’s research also pointed out that innovators are more than twice as likely to adopt requirements tools. He examined companies based on their size, company age and product delivery and found that requirements tools were adopted at a much higher rate in companies that were 1-5 years old, smaller than 500 employees and who used software as a service (SaaS) delivery.
The full 16-page report is available from Forrester for $279 and is worth a read for anyone involved in defining and managing requirements. You can also read Tom Grant’s blog at this link and he welcomes feedback.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The voting period for the iRise $20k Visualize the Prize Video Commercial contest starts today and runs through Friday June 20th at Midnight.
Help us select the overall winner and two runners-up by going over to the Official Voting page and casting your vote for your favorite video. You may vote once per day, so make sure to visit and vote often. The winner will be the video that captures the most votes over the next two weeks and will take home $15,000. The two runners-up will each get $2,500.
We ended up with 44 entries in the contest, and the iRise panel of judges selected 15 semi-finalists for the public voting part of the contest. There are some very good videos left in the competition and we expect to see an extremely tight race.
We will announce the winners before the end of June. All of the entries are still available for viewing on the iRise Video Contest Entries page.
Thank you to everyone who sent in a video submission, and best of luck to the 15 semi-finalists.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Even if you’re a not a writer or lover of words, it is still important to note that today is the 80th birthday of the First Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary or OED as it more commonly known. The OED bills itself as the “definitive record of the English language” and is one of the most famous dictionaries in history.
The OED was a major collaborative efforts and a precursor of today’s Wikipedia. During the 70 years from it’s approval date to it publish date on June 6, 1928, the OED went through many editors. Sir James Murray shepherded it from 1879 to 1915, and probably had the biggest influence on the work.
The official policy of the OED was to:
- “present in alphabetical series the words that have formed the English vocabulary from the time of the earliest records [ca. AD740] down to the present day, with all the relevant facts concerning their form, sense-history, pronunciation, and etymology. It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang”
Here are some quick facts about the First Edition of the OED:
- Actual size – 10 volumes, 15,490 pages
- Time to complete – 70 years
- Number of entries – 252,200
- Number of contributors – 2,000
- Number of quotations submitted – 5 million
And here are some quick links to check out when you have more time:
- OED website
- OED Facts
- OED Word of the Day
- The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester - “this is a scintillating account of the greatest monument ever erected to a living language” and well worth the read if you want to become an expert on the OED
While iRise is trying to do away with textual word-based requirements documents, we still love words and the English language! Take a moment today and reflect on the efforts of so many to bring sense and order to our English language.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Do you Twitter yet? Do you even know why you should? Do you know what Twitter is?
What is Twitter? According to the Twitter website, ” Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” . Twitter lets you send 140 character messages that are visible to anyone and the messages can be sent via the web, IM, cell phone SMS text messaging and the Twitter API. Twittering is also referred to as micro-blogging – and most Twits are easier to read and scan because of the 140 character limitation.
Twitter is definitely moving into the mainstream as evidenced by these two recent quotes:
- “Twitter is one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet” – New York Times
- ‘Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app” – TIME Magazine
Common Craft put together this short video to explain Twitter:
Why do I care? Sure, people share some mundane things in their life, but the real value of Twitter is gathering a group of people you follow and learning from them. I use Twitter to find great blog posts and other resources that I may have otherwise missed. Many astute companies are now using Twitter from a marketing perspective to listen to what their customers are saying and to promote blog posts, news articles and press releases. For example, CIO.com is active in Twitter as well as the Editor-in-Chief, Abbie Lundberg, and editor/writer Esther Schindler. People have even ‘twittered’ about iRise and there is even a website called Tweetscan where you can search on companies, people and other phrases.
Twitter Resources Here are some other essential Twitter links to check out:
- Twitter Guide by Caroline Middlebrook
- Advanced Twittering by Jim Storer of Mzinga
- Twitter 101 presentation by Dustin Jacobsen
- Twitter Resources in the EKIVE blog
- Twitter Resource Roundup from the ext337 blog
- A Talk with the Twitter Guys – Shel Israel interviews the Twitter founders
- Twitter Pack – see who you should follow sorted by company, topic, geography, industry and profession. For example, there is a list of the key Usability/UX professionals who Twitter.
It does take some upfront investment of time to get started with Twitter and you have to find the right set of people to follow who are not going to waste your time. Here is a copy of my Twitter feed so you can visualize the value for yourself. Scroll down and see who I’m following. You can click on a user name to access a person’s profile on Twitter and start following them.
You can find me on Twitter at @tomhumbarger. I look forward to seeing you in the “twittersphere”.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The iRise Professional Services team has created a tremendous resource that is a must download for all iRise Users. This new iDoc, called the iRise 6 – Common Samples, is comprised of 53 iRise examples covering a wide range of data functionality, RIA and advanced interactions. A few of the documented Samples include: accordion panes, alternate views, autopopulation, portlets, table behaviors, data operations, datasheet actions and search.
One happy iRise user who already downloaded the Common Samples iDoc had this to say, “This is one of iRise’s best pro-active customer service moves. So smart. Big props to those who built them in the PS Group.”
The iDoc is provided as a convenience for all users to learn advanced features and improve their knowledge of iRise. The iDoc is available for download from the iRise Users section of the Catalyze Community. You must be sign into the Catalyze Community and have iRise User Permissions to download the iDoc. If you are not yet a member of Catalyze or the iRise Users Communities, you can get more information and register from this link.
Here are the key links to the Common Samples documents in Catalyze.
Each Sample contains a description of the functionality, the degree of difficulty, steps to demonstrate the functionality and steps on how to build the simulation in iRise as noted below:
Enjoy! If you have any comments or questions about the Common Samples iDoc, please use the Common Samples discussion forum in Catalyze. And thank you iRise Professional Services.
|
|
|
|
|
|
We announced the immediate availability of the iRise simulation template for the iPhone at the Interop and Software 2008 conferences yesterday.
“iRise for iPhone”™ gives business analysts, user experience (UX) professionals and others a way to quickly prototype the look, feel and behavior of iPhone applications by making available pre-defined visualization widgets and templates that can be quickly assembled into a high definition mobile applications.
The template can simulate all of the iPhone’s standard menu icons and user actions, such as using sliders and zooming in and out of screens by “pinching” and “unpinching.” Application designers can use it to create custom buttons, manipulate the menu icons and define the effects of actions such as double-tapping a button.
Our alliance partner, OneSpring, developed the capability and is also providing the “OneSpring iPhone SimDK for iRise”.
Chuck Converse, a senior user experience architect at OneSpring noted, “Most applications, if you design them for mobile devices, are very text-heavy. The iPhone’s display capabilities give designers more freedom and a whole new set of choices.”
The full story is available from these related links:
And here is the YouTube video produced by OneSpring which demos the iRise iPhone capability:
�
|
|
|
|
|
|
Is your software simple and usable?
There was an interesting opinion piece at Sandhill.com last week titled “Simplicity: What’s Next in Business Software” by Anthony Deighton of QlikTech.
Anthony pointed out that the gap between what software users experience in their workplace and in the rest of their life is widening while the line between work and home continues to blur. Business users are starting to expect that the applications they use at work be as clear, user-friendly, intuitive and simple as the other software they use.
The bottom line is that enterprise software vendors must “simplify or die” by embracing a philosophy of simplicity or risk getting left behind in the future by innovative and emerging vendors.
There are several characteristics of “simple” software that Anthony lists in his piece, including:
- Continue to offer robustness – “simple” is not the same as “lite”
- Focus on the user – enterprise software vendors need to focus on the user for a change
- Revamp the value chain – make sure you pick partner vendors and service providers who embrace the simplicity vision
- Deliver a fast sales and implementation process – the product must be easy for users, but also deliver quick value to the business
- Relentlessly pursue simplicity – you have to keep focusing on making your product usable and faster to deploy
Check out the full article and complete discussion thread from this link.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Laurie Gray from OneSpring (an iRise Strategic Partner) shared her thoughts on Rich Internet Applications or RIA during the monthly Catalyze webcast yesterday.
She started out with the RIA “elevator pitch” from Tony MacDonell who writes the InsideRIA blog:
“Rich Internet Applications are software programs that are designed to run above the level of the operating system, and are universally available to you, where ever you may be when you need to use them. You can run them on any computer, in any context. Run them in the web browser, on the desktop, or even on mobile devices as well. Rich Internet Applications offer powerful user interfaces, that allow you to work or play in ways that are familiar, intuitive, and exciting. They leverage the best of the web, without sacrificing the power of the desktop.”
She also shared the origins of the term Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) which first appeared in an essay by Jesse James Garrett from adaptive path in February 2005.
According to Laurie, the five myths of RIA are:
- RIAs provide the perfect vehicle for splashy sites
- they are also amazing tools for complex, transactional, data-driven sites too
- RIAs bring people-centered design to information workspaces
- most users will not care how the app was built, but if they have a bad experience, they won’t come back
- If you’ve designed websites, you can design RIAs
- that’s not necessarily true
- It’s just like our software, of course our users will understand it
- think again — there are lots of ways to do things
- RIAs provide a better user experience than traditional HTML
- it depends — and sometimes it can be a worse experience
Laurie wrapped up with a demo of her favorite RIA websites and a list of valuable resources before answering a spirited round of questions.
The presentation slides embedded below and webcast recording are available from the Catalyze Community. Some of the questions from the webcast are also answered in Laurie’s Catalyze blog.
|
|
|
|
|
|
What are Rich Internet Applications or RIAs? Are they the panacea for everything that ails us? Are they the perfect vehicle for sexy, splashy sites? Do RIAs provide a better user experience?
Learn more about RIAs from User Experience expert Laurie Gray of OneSpring in this month’s Catalyze Community Webcast. Laurie will discuss some of the most common attitudes toward RIA’s and address the 5 biggest myths surrounding this exciting technology.
- Title – The Five Myths of RIAs featuring Laurie Gray
- Date and Time — Tuesday, March 18 at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern
- Registration — Sign up at this link
- Recording – If you miss the live broadcast, the recording and presentation will be posted in Catalyze by March 20
Laurie has lived in the world of user experience since 1995 and is a user experience expert with OneSpring - one of iRise’s strategic partners and 2007 Partner of the Year. She also wrote an article on Best Practices in User Experience last year.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Over on the iRise Users section of the Catalyze community, we’ve had an ongoing discussion thread where users have been displaying their creative side in the iRise Haiku Contest.
The exciting part of creating a great product is nurturing passionate users – passionate users who want to share their enthusiasm and knowledge with others.
I thought I’d share some of the haiku entries below:
Simulation done
A common path to follow
The fog is clearing
It, I simulate
To show the product behavior
They print the word doc
iRise is the key
For BA, UX success
Purchase it today
Who needs top-line growth?
iRise visualizes
Drives tranformation
Have an iRise haiku of your own to share? Leave a comment with your submission!
|
|
|
|
