User Experience and Team System

The user education specialist is typically a technical writer who advocates for the user experience constituency in the MSF Team Model. The user education specialist focuses on consumer-focused technical writing which reinforces or enhances product value and helps to realize the product vision. A user education specialist may work on product manuals, on-line Help, operations manuals, maintenance manuals, training manuals, and any other documentation which can be used to enhance the usage and value delivered with the product. User experience architects typically work closely with user education specialists. A good user experience and product design typically leads to a lower workload for the technical writing team. Excessive documentation may be an indicator that the user experience is poor and the writing is compensating for poor overall product design.

The user experience workflow is as follows:

• Analysis

• Develop Documentation

• Establish Project Process

• Release a Product

Also listed here are links to help the user education specialist adopt the workflow for the MSF Team Model using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System.

Process Guidance

• Finding and Using Process Guidance
  Explains how to find and use process guidance for your team project using Team Explorer, Microsoft Project, or Microsoft Excel.

• Team Foundation Process Guidance
  Provides a conceptual overview about process guidance.

Working with Team Projects

• Team Foundation Team Projects
  Provides an overview of team projects and links to more information.

• Using the Team Project Portal
  Lists topics for working with the project portal.

• How to: Add or Remove a Team Project
  Describes how to add and remove team projects in Team Explorer.

Working with Work Items

• Team Foundation Work Items
  Provides a conceptual overview of work items.

• How to: Add New Work Item Queries
  Describes how to create new queries.

• How to: Run Work Item Queries
  Describes how to run queries.

• Working With Work Item Query Clauses
  Describes how to create complex queries using query clauses.

• How to: Find and Edit Work Items Assigned to You
  Explains how to find and edit work items assigned to you.

• How to: Add or Edit Alerts
  Explains how to get notified when a work item changes.

Work Item Synchronization in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Project

• How to: Add Work Items in Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Project
  Describes how to add new work items to the work item database using Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word.

• How to: Publish or Refresh Work Items in Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Project
  Describes how to publish work items to the work item database, and how to refresh work items with changes from the work item database.

Working with Work Items in Microsoft Excel

• How to: Create a Work Item List
  Describes how to create a work item list in Microsoft Excel.

• How to: Add or Remove Columns in the Work Item List
  Describes how to add or remove columns in a Microsoft Excel work item list.

• How to: Connect a Work Item List to a Work Item Query
  Describes how to connect a work item list to a work item query so that the work item list synchronizes based on the query.

• How to: Remove Work Items in Microsoft Excel
  Describes how to remove work items from a work item list in Microsoft Excel.

Working with Work Items in Microsoft Project

• How to: Remove Work Items in Microsoft Project
  Describes how to remove work items from a Microsoft Project plan.

• How to: Enable or Disable Publishing of Work Items in Microsoft Project
  Describes how to control work item publishing so that some work items are not published to the work item database.

Source Control

• How to: Configure Visual Studio with Team Foundation Source Control
  Describes how to configure Visual Studio to use Team Foundation source control and how to configure environment settings for Team Foundation source control.

Working with Files

• How to: Add Non-Project or Non-Solution Files and Folders to Source Control
  How do I work with existing Visual Basic 6 and .NET projects that I do not want to upgrade?

Workspaces

• How to: Create a Workspace
  Describes how to create a workspace to map files under source control to your local folders.

• How to: Identify Source Control Item Status in Solution Explorer
  Explains the meaning of different source control icons you can see in Solution Explorer.