The first major UX initiative on my plate is the development of a DNN Corporation User Experience Style Guide. The primary audience of the document is the developers and designers within the corporation and the community working on components of the application which output or define front-end markup (e.g., modules, skins, skin objects, etc.) and that are or will be included as part of an official DNN release.
In the interests of keeping the community informed and involved, I will be posting individual sections or subsections of the guide to this blog as initial drafts are completed and after significant updates are made. I look forward to receiving your feedback when the time comes. :D
Just to whet your appetite, here’s a list of the document sections in my draft outline, with descriptions:
- Introduction
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- Helpful Documents and Web Sites
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Helpful document and web-site resources for front-end development and web UI design.
- General Web Development Considerations
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Web development guidelines intended to ensure that DNN’s core application components will assist, rather than hinder, the process of creating websites that are optimally accessible to different people, browsers, search engines and devices. Guidelines in this section will touch on [X]HTML and CSS standards, accessibility concerns, separation of structure and format, browser testing expectations, etc.
- DNN Core User Experience
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DNN’s core user experience is comprised of the UI from the core components—the web controls from DNN's administrative and configuration forms, DNN standard skin objects, DNN core modules and DNN default skins—and the content for the core product—in context help, default site content and end user documentation. For each UI component, this section will include a screenshot or mockup of the UI and details about the markup, default styling and scripting considerations. For each content type, this section will include discussion of writing style, writing tone, typographical considerations, and visual style.
- DNN Design Patterns
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A library of design patterns that are or could be used within the core DNN application. For each pattern, this section will include a screenshot or mockup of the recommended pattern UI and discussion of situations where the pattern should be used and details about the markup, default styling and scripting considerations.
Feedback, if you have any, concerning this draft outline is also welcome. :)
:-j(enni)