At first it appeared that Marketplace was missing four more categories than it was because of its use of nested categories.  It turns out that Marketplace is more fine-grained when it comes to Business and it has a Communication category that App Store doesn’t.  But Marketplace is missing categories for Education and Medical.  I think it is a huge oversight to not have a top-level Education category in Marketplace.

Now let’s compare the Games categories between the two stores:

It is surprising to see that App Store has 5 more categories than Marketplace with Classic being the only category that Marketplace has that App Store doesn’t.

I suspect that as more applications are developed for (or ported to) the Windows Phone 7 that developers will be asking Microsoft to add categories to Marketplace.

Extension to Caliburn.Micro to allow implementation of filters similar to what is found in Caliburn.

A Caliburn.Micro recipe: filters « Marco Amendola

Download and copy the Caliburn.Micro.WP7.zip file to the following directory on your computer: \Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Silverlight for Windows Phone

Start up Visual Studio and create a new project.  You will see an option for Caliburn.Micro (WP7):

After the project is created, you will see the following project structure:

Fix the reference to Caliburn.Micro (download from CodePlex), set a breakpoint in the constructor of MainPageViewModel, and run the application.  You will see that when navigation happens to MainPage, that MainPageViewModel is created. 

Continue execution to view the app in the emulator:

I like Rob’s idea of doing View-first for pages and ViewModel-first for components on a Page.  I have chosen the following naming: MyPage/MyPageViewModel (pages) and MyView/MyViewModel (user controls).

The user is shown multiple views of the same item side by side using the Pivot control. The buttons on the Application Bar remain consistent across Pivot pages.

Example: E-mail (all, unread, urgent, flagged); Appointment (details, attendees)

(video)

The user is presented with a panorama containing multiple pages of content. The first is a list that acts as a menu. Clicking on a list items takes you to another panorama with the specific content. The Application Bar is not used.

Example: AP Mobile

(video)

The July 2010 release of the UI Design and Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7 is a document that all designers and developers of Windows Phone 7 applications need to become thoroughly familiar with.  It is a beautifully laid out 101-page document that discussed the phone’s capabilities, controls, and interactions.  As I read the guide, I took notes that I could refer to quickly as needed.  The result is a 10-page summary of the UI Design & Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7.  I hope others find it useful.

Here is a link to the documentation topics:

• Getting Started
  • Introduction
  • Obtain and Build the Code

• Soup to Nuts
  • Basic Configuration, Actions and Conventions
  • Customizing The Bootstrapper
  • All About Actions
  • WP7 Basics
  • Coroutines

• Recipes
  • SimpleContainer

I know Rob has been working on some WP7 goodness that should be out soon.  Looking forward to the release.

After going through the Windows Phone 7 Application Certification Requirements document, I created this summary of the main points for quicker reference than the 22 pages of the July 2010, version 1.1 document.

Size:

· Over the air install up to 20MB;

· disclose additional data package if greater than 50MB;

· max XAP size 400MB;

Images:

Performance:

· First screen render within 5 seconds (use splash screen)

· Responsive to user input within 20 seconds

Prompt User:

· Chat, instant messaging, or other person-to-person communication applications that all creation of accounts via phone device, must verify that user is at least 13 years old

· “Opt-in” consent for publishing personal information to any service or other person

· “Opt-in” consent for push notifications

· User-friendly error message on exception

· Visual progress bar with cancel option for time consuming activities

· Back button in games to present in-game pause menu or main menu with resume option

· Message if Location Service turned off in a location-aware application

· Explicit permission on first use of toast or tile notification

· Explicit permission on first run of application under a locked screen

· Apps that play their own background music must ask before stopping or adjusting music playback from Music + Video Hub

Settings screen:

· Enable/disable toast notification

· Enable/disable tile notification

· Enable/disable application from running under a locked screen

· Use/Override music from Music + Video hub

· Control own background music/adjust hub music (ex: volume)

Restrictions:

· May not require the user to pay outside of Windows Phone Marketplace to activate, unlock, upgrade, or extend usage of the application

· May not sell, link to, or promote mobile plans

· May not consist of, distribute, link to, or incent users to download, or otherwise promote alternate marketplaces for applications and/or games

· Must not jeopardize the security or functionality of phone devices or Marketplace

· Advertising must comply with http://advertising.microsoft.com/creative-specs

· Apps that allow purchase of music content must include Windows Phone music Marketplace as an option.

· For music not purchased through Windows Phone music Marketplace, app must include its own playback

· Content restrictions include: licensed, copyrighted, illegal, obscene, indecent, violent, defamatory, libelous, slanderous, threatening, hate speech, discriminatory, adult-related, promotes illegal activities, excessive alcohol, tobacco, weapons, drugs, violence, profanity

· PInvoke, COM interoperability, debug symbols, reflection were it affects phone capabilities, uncaught exceptions

· Must not include viruses, malware, or malicious software

I had the opportunity to take the course, Engineering the User Experience – Essentials for Software Professionals, from Infragistics using the online on-demand option.  The course has the following objectives:

• Understand, communicate, and apply the background and concept of user experience.
• Assess the user experience of interactive products.
• Apply UI design best practices to their own work.
• Understand the process of user experience and how to merge it within their development process.
• Understand the role and power of user interface controls and patterns.

The course is presented online via Silverlight, takes approximately 3 hours to complete, and costs $395.  For a limited time, when you purchase a NetAdvantage product this course is included for free.

The first part of the training defines User Experience (UX) as including usability and appeal and states the case of why UX is important.  More content is this area would have been useful.

Next, various user interfaces were shown and categorized as belonging to the Hall of Shame or Hall of Fame.  This exercise took only 5 minutes and some of the “shame” examples were too obvious.  I think it would be useful to show more examples in this section.

The section on design best practices was the most extensive of the course.  The first topic was the steps of specifying an information architecture and the defining the UI to include layout, navigation, and detailed design.  Then approximately 24 usability and appearance principles were discussed including suggestions of things to do and not do.  The principles include: context, grouping, text, menus, icons, color, and composition.  This section provides enough detail to be useful.

Patterns (collection of controls to solve a specific challenge) are introduced as well as the Quince tool via a video tour.

The final major section was about assessing UX.  This was a fire-hose experience with a lot of information given.  Maybe it was because I took this course all in one morning, but this was the hardest content for me to remember.  Maybe if there was a concrete example of a UI that was then assessed, then I could remember better.  I will need to go back over this section again when my mind is clearer.

Overall, I found the training useful.  Many points of the training confirm what I have learned over my 14 years experience with software development.  Some topics were new to me like card sorting, Fitt’s law, and Nielsen’s 10 heuristics.  There were a few issues with the training.  First the sound level of some of the videos were too quiet or too loud compared to the others.  There were a lot of lists embedded in the videos that I can’t find elsewhere.  It would be good to have them for later reference.  It would also be useful if this document had links to additional resources.

I give the training a solid B.

If you take this training, I would love to hear your comments about it.

Tip 3 in The Pragmatic Programmer states:

Provide Options, Don’t Make Lame Excuses

For one day keep track of what you say in meetings, on the phone, or through e-mail and categorize them as:

• Reasonable option/solution
• Lame excuse

You don’t have to share your list, but blog/comment about the experience.