Useful Generic Resources from Microsoft - Miscellaneous

1. Microsoft Style Guide

Microsoft have an extremely useful Microsoft Style Guide for websites and apps to ensure the communication is clear and consistent.  It is simple to follow and makes understanding for customers easier.  The key takeaway for me is be consistent and "Be warm and relaxed, crisp and clear, and ready to lend a hand as appropriate for the context." Developer content - Microsoft Style Guide | Microsoft Docs 

For Ux Developers, the finalised messages is generally not available (or known) so it is good if they provide messages that they believe are correct that are "warm and relaxed, clear, and contextual", this allows for updates to be much easier for the final content reviewer.  

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/style-guide

2. Fluent UI

Fluent UI Fluent UI - Get started - Fluent UI (microsoft.com) is useful to provide a consistent framework for Ux.

3. Frontend Bootcamp

Microsoft Days in the Web - Welcome

4. Kiota

Building Response Canvas Power App

Problem:  Power Apps is great, but historically, you either build for the tablet or the phone, and then the end users get an alright experience on the other device type.  Microsoft have Horizontal and Vertical containers, and it is a great way to build Responsive/Progressive applications.  

On the Power App, make the following settings changes:

• Settings > Advanced Settings > Enable "Layout Containers"
• Settings > Screensize + Orientation > Disable "Scale to Fit"
• Settings > Screensize + Orientation > Disable "Lock Orientation"

Layout controls: Horizontal container & Vertical container. Use these two controls to achieve a Responsive Design.  Screen layouts are only available for the Tablet layout. 

Tip: Open the Canvas app in full-screen view. To improve the web browser experience, add ‘&hidenavbar=true’ to the end of the app URL. To enable Fullscreen mode, ‘Fit to screen’ must be disabled, and the app must be ‘Responsive’. 

Tree Testing and Heuristic Reviews - Ux for dummies

I was speaking to two Ux experts in a meeting and they referred to Tree Testing when discussing Information Architecture and the users working there way around a new SaaS product.  "Tree Testing" is not a term I had heard before so they showed me this site and it fantastic.

https://www.optimalworkshop.com/learn/101s/tree-testing/

I'm more familiar with Heuristic Reviews - that I find useful for improving UI/UX using an iterative approach that suits Agile nicely.