I use Powerpoint 2007 to do all my prototyping and requirements.  It’s a great tool.  Much much better than PPT 2003.  Over the last 18 months, I have used this technique to great success.  Check out these two examples.  One is an older style and the other is newer.  The newer one has animation, so you might want to check it out in presentation mode.

In general, the thing to notice is that they contain very little text.  From a engineer’s standpoint it means having to extrapolate architectural requirements from the UI.  I have seen people call this Interface Driven Architecture.  Here is another snippet on IDA.

This technique has been honed on dozens of products dating back to 1995.  I used to use Visio but it was a static representation of each screen with alot of words.  Over time I kept removing words and adding in fake interactivity.  The point of this is to get enough detail to the engineer to start working and sketch out an architecture.  It doesn’t represent the final reality of the product, but rather the beginning of the process.  It’s a visual use case with details.

How do you do requirements? How close should the reality and the documents conform?  100%?  30%?

I think there is an analogy between documents that are trying to be 100% accurate and 30% accurate to Waterfall versus Agile methodologies of project management.  I am a fan of Agile because it embraces change and encourages iterations and discussions.  I also like documents that are 30% accurate  for the same reasons.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a library of different kinds of planning documents online?  I wonder if Universities are teaching the different kinds of requirements docs and prototypng?  Please send me examples of your docs.  How would you improve them if you could do it anyway you wanted?

There are lots of people who can do a particular job.  Sometimes, however, one gets a new idea.  The idea is how you can do that job better, more effectively and more enjoyably.  The idea is important.

Most companies make that idea difficult to implement.  It stays on the shelf with lots of other good ideas and rots there.  Eventually you get jaded and say, ‘Ideas rock the boat.  Just move forward and one day I will be charge and can bring back that idea”.  And of course, once you are in power, you have long forgotten that idea, or it is so outdated that it makes a mess trying to implement it.

Personally, I try to stay an idealist.  I am OK with rocking the boat.  I have ideas and I cherish them.  I look at the world and say, “I have this idea, and I just need a chance”.

Ideas change the world.

In interviews, I tell people that Marketo is a place where ideas can flourish.  Where someone with an idea could find a home there and make it happen.  Think about the idea you have.  Is it on the shelf or are you making it reality?

Marketo is hiring.  We are interested in your ideas.

Something went wrong with my machine at home.  A popup started saying things like, “Your license is about to expire, backup your stuff because this machine is about to become a paper-weight.”  I was really annoyed.  I purchased Vista for a reason.  So I wouldn’t have to deal with that crap.  Microsoft tech support was not helpful at all.

The whole experience is me really mad at Microsoft.  They haven’t innovated in a long time.  Vista is fine, but it’s not fast enough.  It makes me want to switch to something else, but what is better?

Mac?  I don’t want to buy new hardware.  There is a way to get it working on a Dell.  Here is a snippet:

Obviously, hackers and other geeks are a resourceful bunch! So despite Apple’s wishes, it is possible to install OS X on your Dell and other Windows-based PCs thanks to the OSx86 Project. However, the installation process is extremely complicated. Only the geekiest computer users should attempt the installation of OS X on non-Mac hardware.

Truthfully, I just don’t have the time.  Then I need to learn a whole new OS.  Find a whole new set of programs.  Replace a whole bunch of programs I have come to enjoy.  I just can’t deal with that.

What about Linux?  It’s possible to install, but then I have to find drivers for everything.  Then my printer won’t work, or the scanner, or something else.  And the UI isn’t better.  OpenOffice blows.  So what then?  Run Vista or XP in a virtual machine?  What’s the point?  Why not just run windows and run linux in a virtual machine??

There are no good options.  So I just reinstalled the operating system.  However, this time, I used the 64-bit version instead of the 32-bit version (I had both).  Speed improvement?  Not that I can see.  Any benefit?  Not that I can see.

However, now my scanner doesn’t work.  It will cost me $60 to get a new one that has proper drivers.  Today is starting off on the wrong foot.

In better news, I played tennis this weekend and won!  Woo Hoo! Sometimes you just have to look for the good news in a different spot!

I was working on a friend’s wedding site using Wordpress as the base.  He is a graphic designer and has excellent taste for these things.  At first, I started with a theme that was close and tried to modify it.  This is what I did on my own site.  However, I realized pretty quickly that this was folly.  I should have started with the sandbox theme.

In fact, about 3/4 of the way through, I threw away my work and started over with the sandbox.  It went MUCH faster to design the theme.  Most people’s html is just horrible.  It’s filled with bizarre hacks to deal with IE6 and crazy html.  The sandbox, in comparrison is pretty clean without a lot of fuss.  Much easier to work with.

I ran out of time before I could finish, but it definetely taught me a lesson.  Stop wasting time trying to modify themes, just build them from the sandbox.  I need to finish the wedding site this week.  Then I might try and make a new theme for me (yeah right, like I have time) that uses the sandbox as a base.

I wish, I wish, I wish I had more time.  (Paraphrase from Denzel Washington in Man on Fire).

Google Maps and street view is getting scary.  For a while, Microsoft’s Maps, was the closest look at my house.  But the Street View for Google is just crazy.  It’s a digital photo from the street of every house in my neighboorhood.  Interestingly, I can’t make out any of the license plates on the cars.  I wonder if they do that automagically.

The coolest new thing I saw today was how you could edit your own house.  I looked for my address, and then noticed that the marker was one house off.  I clicked edit and moved the marker.  It told me that if I move it more than 200 meters that it would not work right away.  How cool is that?  How scary is that?

Yesterday, I had the idea that any digital camera on a phone with GPS could be configured to upload the coordinates and the photo to google maps.  The combination of millions of these photos could be formed into a virtual earth collage.  Almost a 3D real representation.  I can’t even fathom how much data storage all this needs.

The whole thing strikes me as the beginning of a virtual reality helmet where I could visit a neighboorhood that I am interested in moving to.  This is first steps towards the Holodeck on Star Trek.

I am excited and terrified at the same time.  Using this system makes me feel like I am on a scary roller coaster.  Will we fall into a world where predators can steal your identity and reality is bent like Total Recall?  Or will we end up in utopia like in Star Trek - The Next Generation?

We live in exciting times.

Wordpress 2.6 is getting ready to go into beta.  I’ve said this beofre, but Wordpress to me is just a fantastic program.  The design of the UX including the UI, IA, upgrade process, plugin process, html editing, is just world class.  I am continually inspired by how a program can work in such a smooth and pleasant way.

Writing a post is fun.  I am looking forward to installing 2.6.

Check out the chart showing history of online advertising spend.  It’s fascinating.  This is why Yahoo still exists, even though they are getting clobbered by Google.

I am so far behind in my usage of Microsoft technologies.  I haven’t installed Windows Server 2008 anywhere.  I haven’t installed Exchange 2007 on any system.  I haven’t tried Sharepoint Server 2007.  I feel so lame.  They have SP1 on these for crying out loud.  I am way behind.

I don’t have a server in the garage anymore.  I can’t upgrade us at work because there is no time and I would get killed if I lost our data.

Has anyone used these new versions?  Is there anything noteworthy?  I wish Microsoft had citrix virtual machines so you could try them out for 30 minutes at a time.

This will probably never make it to someone who actually matters on the Microsoft Windows team, but who knows.  It’s worth a try.  You never know.

The Microsoft WIndows team should spend the next 3 years NOT adding new features.  They should spend the entire time improving performance and quality.  The reason MacOS X is much better than Windows Vista is the exact reason why Windows 2000 was so much better than MacOS 9.  It’s faster and more reliable.

Users like fancy graphics in general, but that is not the critical aspect of the operating system.  Speed and reliability are everything.  If you open up Word and it takes 10 seconds, you are annoyed and start thinking about why things suck.  If you launch a new window and BAM! it is there immediately, then you start to feel good and productive.  An operating system needs to be fast.

Reliability is also killing Vista. It crashes still.  If you leave Vista up and running for weeks at a time, you will get funky behavior.  When something goes wrong with Vista, a reboot is always the best first medicine.  MacOS can run much longer without getting weird.

Spend a couple of years on reliability and speed.  Make Vista MUCH MUCH faster.  I don’t care if that means a brand new infrastructure.  It needs to be fast.

If they were to release Windows NextGen (Performance Edition) and the experience was instantaneous across the board, then I think Microsoft could put the varnish back on.  Otherwise, I see a long slow decline as the desktop means less and less in a browser centric world.

Interesting:  The minute I published this, I saw this article saying that Apple is doing EXACTLY what I prescribed for Microsoft.  Great minds…

jQuery has just released version 1.5 of their user interface module called “jQuery UI”.  Maybe not the most snazzy of names, however, the module is a major leap forward for web developers and application developers.  You can see the details at http://ui.jquery.com although the high interest has crash the server, I think.  I can’t wait to try it out.

The blog post is extremely well written and gives a great high level overview of what the module does.  When jQuery first came out, it totally transformed the way I think about building websites.  With jQuery UI, I think a similar change would happen for applications.

I still love ExtJS for heavy duty applications like Marketo, but you do have to buy a license.  For an open source alternative, and a lighter weight version, jQuery UI is a perfect solution.  In fact, I am already thinking about how the Marketo Landing Page designer could be enhanced with jQuery UI.

Certainly, the tabs would be great to build those through the UI.  This would help users who want Microsites, but know that it is better to keep the user on the same page.  I will have to think about this more, but I think there is alot of potential there.

Check it out and see what you think.