So what is a developer experience anyway?
Discussion on all things related to the experience that a developer has with development tools and frameworks.
Feedback on Avalon CTP?
If you've downloaded and played around with the Avalon CTP release would you be willing to share...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 01/28/2005
Ideas for talks at upcoming conferences?
I was just in a meeting with the Visual Studio UX (user experience) team. Someone brought up the...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 01/20/2005
Avalon November CTP is available for download
Most participants who come in for an API study on Avalon ask me where they can get access to the...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 01/14/2005
Attributes and API usability (again!)
I've been running another usability study on an API that makes heavy use of attributes and have made...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 10/08/2004
Parameter naming and the Google test
Brad has a post on choosing parameter names for overloaded methods which brings to mind a recent...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 08/24/2004
System.Net usability study
I'm running a study this week on the Beta 1 version of the System.Net namespace. In addition to the...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 08/16/2004
Whyline
Brad Myers from CMU was here today giving a talk which included some details of the Whyline system,...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 08/04/2004
Virtual properties anyone?
As part of the WinFX review team, I regularly review APIs for usability issues. One thing that we as...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 07/30/2004
VS automation samples
I've been asked for suggestions for a list of VS automation samples that would help solve tricky...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 07/14/2004
This scares me!
Aleksei Guzev was scared by my last post on readability vs writability. I think what might have...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 07/06/2004
Readability vs Writability
Jay has a great post on readability vs writability. It's really important to take this into account...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 07/02/2004
Using the cognitive dimensions
Now that I've finished posting the series of articles on using the cognitive dimensions to evaluate...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 05/24/2004
Using the cognitive dimensions - domain correspondence
This is the last in the series I've been posting about how to use the cognitive dimensions framework...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 05/17/2004
Attributes and API usability revisited
I posted a query last week requesting feedback on the use of attributes in an API and their effect...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 05/12/2004
Can I see your code?
Scott Klemmer, a graduate student at the Institute of Design at UC Berkeley emailed me last week to...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 05/11/2004
Windows mobile devices and API usability
The mobile devices team has just completed an API usability review and found some interesting...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 05/06/2004
Attributes and API usability
I'm in the middle of running an API study this week with an API that makes heavy use of attributes...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 05/06/2004
Carlos Perez on API usability
Here's an interesting post on API usability.
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 05/05/2004
Psychology of Programming Workshop
Another paper that caught my attention at the recent Psychology of Programming workshop was...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 04/27/2004
Using the cognitive dimensions - Role Expressiveness
For each user goal that your API supports, describe how easy it is to tell from reading the code...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 04/23/2004
Psychology of Programming Workshop
It's been well over a month since I last posted. I've been away for a few weeks on vacation and...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 04/16/2004
Using the cognitive dimensions - consistency
Consistency in an API allows users to make use of what they have learned about how one part of the...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 03/17/2004
Using the cognitive dimensions - API viscosity
API viscosity measures the resistance to change of code written using a particular API. For each...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 03/10/2004
PPIG newsletter
The latest edition of the PPIG (Psychology of Programming Interest Group) newsletter is out...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 03/03/2004
ObjectSpaces and usability
Here's an interesting post about the effect that a few changes to a language syntax can have on a...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 03/01/2004
Joel Spolsky on programming language usability
A colleague forwarded me this link to Joel Spolsky's blog posting on API and programming language...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 02/27/2004
Using the cognitive dimensions - API Elaboration
API elaboration describes the extent to which a developer can and must extend the API in order to...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 02/27/2004
Usability and prototypes
It's been a while since I last posted and the main reason for my silence has been that I've been...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 02/27/2004
API Penetrability
A recent usability study highlighted some issues related to API penetrability (you'll find a posting...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 02/13/2004
Using the Cognitive Dimensions - API Elaboration
This dimension provides a measure of the extent to which developers must and can extend the API in...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 02/10/2004
Using the Cognitive Dimensions - Penetrability
Penetrability refers to the extent to which a developer must understand the underlying...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 02/03/2004
Premature commitment in action
I just finished up an API usability study, during which one of the issues that came up was due to...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 02/02/2004
OK/Cancel
I just got forwarded this link to a pretty amusing and interesting usability site:...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 01/30/2004
Why profile users and not tasks?
I was recently asked to describe why we had decided to profile user characteristics via the...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 01/28/2004
Using the cognitive dimensions - premature commitment
After a long absence, here's the next installment in a series on how to use the cognitive dimensions...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 01/22/2004
I'm moving...
From now on, instead of posting on blogs.gotdotnet.com, I'll be posting to...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 12/22/2003
Using the Cognitive Dimensions - Progressive Evaluation
Here's the next in the series of posts for using the Cognitive Dimensions framework... For each user...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 12/22/2003
Using the Cognitive Dimensions - Work Step Unit
Continuing my series of posts on using the cognitive dimensions framework. I have a few to catch up...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 12/22/2003
Should collection based properties be read only?
An interesting question came up today on the issue of making all collection based properties read...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 12/08/2003
Using the cognitive dimensions - working framework
The next installment in using the cognitive dimensions... For each user goal that the API...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 12/03/2003
System.Xml or System.XML?
Brad Abrams recently asked me if I knew of any research that investigated whether or not mixed case...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 12/03/2003
Sidebar API usability study
We just finished up a usability study investigating the new Sidebar and Tile APIs. We asked...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 11/26/2003
Using the cognitive dimensions, continued - learning style
Here's the next howto on how to analyse an API using the cognitive dimensions framework. As always,...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 11/24/2003
More cognitive dimensions links
I should have posted these a while ago... Alan Blackwell works on the cognitive dimensions framework...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 11/14/2003
Sign up for a usability study
If you'd like to get the chance to participate in an API usability study and give us your feedback...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 11/14/2003
Using the cognitive dimensions framework to design usable APIs
A few weeks ago, I posted some details about the cognitive dimensions framework that we use at...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 11/14/2003
Experts and non experts
I had an interesting conversation with a colleague of mine last week. We were discussing the extent...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 11/03/2003
Aesthetics, language design and usability
Here's an interesting interview with Anders Hejlsberg in which he makes some points about...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 10/15/2003
Fixed links
I've finally fixed the broken links in my first posting below. Sorry for the delay...
Author: Steven Clarke Date: 10/10/2003