Application

Software GUI… Which one is your?

Posted by Dennis Crane on October 10, 2010 at 3:49 pm

Click to enlarge Any ideas…? UPDATE: Software GUI… Which one is your? – Explained

User interface improvement: getting rid of unused space

Posted by Dennis Crane on January 29, 2010 at 4:56 am

In this short post I’d like to share a real case of user interface improvement that we implemented in the upcoming release of the Dr.Explain 4.0. In previous releases of the Dr.Explain we had a problem – much of screen space on the top of the application window was not used effectively. Before (old versions [...]

Does Your Software Application Need An Eye-Candy GUI?

Posted by Dennis Crane on November 23, 2009 at 9:53 am

Does my application need a colorful bright interface with amazing icons, animated skins and cool sound effects? First, think about how much time does an average user spend working with your application per session and what does he use it for. If user spends more than 20-30 minutes per session within your application (which is [...]

Yes! Summer is a good time to release software products

Posted by Dennis Crane on July 1, 2009 at 5:00 pm

A pretty common question on software development forums: Should I release my new product in July or postpone it for a couple of months? I recommend to release your new software product as soon as possible to quickly test the product idea and to start communication with users. July is a good time for pilot [...]

How to name software product line editions

Posted by Dennis Crane on September 1, 2008 at 2:05 am

If you decide to split your software product into several editions with different settings then you will likely wonder how to name them. Naming software editions depends upon what do you offer and what do you limit in each edition. There are several common approaches in building editions: Functional limitation (F) Environmental or purpose usage [...]

How to Quickly Test Your Software Before Final Release

Posted by Dennis Crane on June 6, 2008 at 7:35 am

This is a short and simple plan for quick testing final release of your software application before making it public. Just not to overlook something trivial but very important. Texts Spelling: Check all text labels, menu items, hints and messages for typos. Version: If you don’t increment your version or build number automatically during compilation [...]

Two new products for software vendors

Posted by dennis on March 11, 2008 at 5:24 am

The software improvement advice, techniques and ideas that I post here are taken from our real practice. I try to keep this blog practical and hype free. This post is a rare case (the previous one was about 9 months ago) when I’d like to tell a little about our own products. During the recent [...]

How to run a beta testing process

Posted by dennis on February 5, 2008 at 11:30 am

Recently, we’ve published Dr.Explain v.3.0 beta for open beta testing. This is a major version update and we added a lot of really cool but complicated (for programming, not for users) features. So, we have to run comprehensive tests before releasing this update officially. In this post I’d like to tell briefly how we run [...]

Implementing Uninstall Feedback with Inno Setup

Posted by dennis on January 23, 2008 at 9:28 am

There are problems in your software! Otherwise your “demo installations / orders” ratio must be 100%, is it? If it’s 100% don’t read this post and write your own one about how you achieved this. People are lazy and they will hardly write you by e-mail about problems they have with your program. They likely [...]

User Interface Improvements: Assistance

Posted by Dennis Crane on December 3, 2007 at 8:50 am

In this post I continue writing about some simple practices that will help you quickly improve your software GUI. In the first post I wrote how to position your GUI elements properly. Before I started to write this post I had been thinking how to name it. I’m not writing a comprehensive guide on usability [...]