Hands-On Lab

Building the Right Software: Generating Storyboards and Collecting Stakeholder Feedback with Visual Studio 2012

Lab version:11.0.60315.01 Update 2

Last updated:4/9/2013

Contents

Overview

Exercise 1: Introduction to Storyboarding

Exercise 2: Eliciting Feedback with the Microsoft Feedback Client

Overview

How often have you built the software that your users asked for, but not necessarily what they wanted? In a world of increasingly complex software projects, it is critical that we can accurately capture requirements from users, which can then be translated into working software. In this lab, you’ll learn how new capabilities of Visual Studio 2012 will make it possible to both rapidly storyboard your requirements, and – as your software evolves – get rich, actionable feedback from users of your software which can help shape what you deliver.

Prerequisites

In order to complete this lab you will need the Visual Studio 2012 virtual machine provided by Microsoft. For more information on acquiring and using this virtual machine, please see this blog post.

About the Fabrikam Fiber Scenario

This set of hands-on-labs uses a fictional company, Fabrikam Fiber, as a backdrop to the scenarios you are learning about. Fabrikam Fiber provides cable television and related services to the United States. They are growing rapidly and have embraced Windows Azure to scale their customer-facing web site directly to end-users to allow them to self-service tickets and track technicians. They also use an on-premises ASP.NET MVC application for their customer service representatives to administer customer orders.

In this set of hands-on labs, you will take part in a number of scenarios that involve the development and testing team at Fabrikam Fiber. The team, which consists of 8-10 people, has decided to use Visual Studio application lifecycle management tools to manage their source code, run their builds, test their web sites, and plan and track the project.

Exercises

This hands-on lab includes the following exercises:

  1. Introduction to Storyboarding
  2. Eliciting Feedback with the Microsoft Feedback Client

Estimated time to complete this lab: 60 minutes.

Exercise 1: Introduction to Storyboarding

In this exercise, you will learn how to use the PowerPoint storyboarding add-in to create application storyboards. This will be accomplished by examining an existing storyboard file and by adding in some additional storyboard slides to address an additional user story.

Note: Please note that in the virtual machine you may notice delays when attempting to open the team project portal while the necessary SharePoint services are started for the first time. You may notice timeouts, or errors such as the screenshot below.

In most cases, you can keep refreshing the page until it loads. Note that it may take a few minutes depending on the performance of the hardware you are hosting this virtual machine on. If after a few minutes it still doesn’t load, please confirm that you have configured this virtual machine according to the proper setup instructions. This includes ensuring that you have at least one network adapter installed and configured (an internal network adapter is recommended).

  1. Log in as Annie, who is responsible for representing customer interests and user experience. All user passwords are P2ssw0rd.
  2. Let’s get started by locating the existing storyboard. Launch Internet Explorer and click on the TFS FF Project Portal button in the favorites bar to load the dashboard. This might take a few minutes.

Figure 1

Fabrikam Fiber project portal

  1. Select the Shared Documents link to view the library where the PowerPoint file named “FF Storyboard – Start” is located.

Figure 2

Location of Shared Documents link

  1. Select the hyperlink for the “FF Storyboard - Start” file to load it in PowerPoint.

Figure 3

Location of starting storyboard file

Note: We are using a shared location in SharePoint so that the entire team has access to the file.

  1. Select the yellow Enable Editing button towards the top of the PowerPoint window.

Figure 4

Enable editing of storyboard file

  1. Select the Storyboarding tab at the top of the PowerPoint window.

Figure 5

Initial view of storyboard in PowerPoint, showing the Storyboarding tab

Note: If you wanted to create a new storyboard from scratch, you could do so from Start | All Programs | Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 | PowerPoint Storyboarding.

  1. These storyboard slides show how the new PowerPoint storyboarding add-in can be used to mock up UI for web and mobile applications. You can take advantage of slide masters and different layouts to create re-usable templates that are set up for your application. Select the Layout button to see some of the layouts that are available in this storyboarding PowerPoint file.

Figure 6

Slide masters and layouts

Note: If you wanted to make modifications to the slide master layouts, you would do so by selecting the Edit Layout button in the Storyboarding tab.

  1. Press the F5 key to view the storyboard in presentation mode. Click through the slides with the mouse or press the right arrow key until the presentation is finished. Note that the storyboard provides the look and feel for certain pieces of a web application and a Windows Phone application. Animations are used to show how the user is interacting with the application.
  2. Now let’s create some additional storyboards for the Fabrikam Fiber intranet site, where employees interface with customer data and service tickets. When creating storyboards, it can be helpful to document specific scenarios that translate to user stories for the development team to implement and test. In Team Foundation Server, assume that there is a product backlog item representing a user story that states “Service rep can view service ticket details from the dashboard.”
  3. Delete all the existing slides so that we can concentrate on the new user story by repeatedly pressing the Delete key (or Ctrl-A followed by Delete).

Figure 7

Deleting all existing slides

  1. Select the New Slide drop-down button and choose the “1_Default” layout from the “Web Browser” slide master.

Figure 8

Creating a new slide using a slide master

  1. Take a look at the new storyboard slide to see everything that is provided by the slide master. The entire chrome for the web application is there, which helps keep our storyboard slides looking consistent.

Figure 9

New slide using the selected slide master

  1. Note that the slide master also includes some placeholders for the web page title and address, which are editable. Modify the “Web page title” placeholder by entering “Dashboard” instead. This slide is going to represent the Dashboard page, which is designed to show a rollup of tickets, alerts & messages, and other company-wide information.

Figure 10

Modifying placeholders provided by the slide master

  1. As a quick aside, load the Fabrikam Fiber intranet site in Internet Explorer by clicking on the FF Intranet Portal button in the favorites bar ( This loads the Dashboard page. Take a glance at the UI shown here so that we can duplicate some of it in the storyboards.

Note: Although storyboards normally precede implementation, in this lab you will occasionally refer to both storyboards in development and the finished product in order to help speed up the demonstration.

Figure 11

Dashboard view of Fabrikam Fiber intranet portal

  1. Back in PowerPoint, add a new Text Box to the first slide.

Figure 12

Adding a Text Box to the slide

  1. Enter the text “Dashboard” for the new text box to create the heading for this page and position it as shown in the following screenshot. Make the text bold, use font size of 16, and select a gray font color.

Figure 13

Adding content to the storyboard slide

  1. Now let’s create a button named “Create New” below the Dashboard title. Select the Storyboard Shapes button if the Storyboard Shapes panel is not currently open.

Figure 14

Opening the Storyboard Shapes panel

  1. In the Storyboard Shapes panel on the right-hand side, type “button” into the search box to locate the Button shape.

Figure 15

Searching the shapes library

  1. Drag and drop an instance of the Button shape onto the slide.

Figure 16

Adding shapes to the storyboard

  1. Change the text from the default to “Create New”, choose a white font color, and choose anorange shape fill color to match the required design. Imagine that Fabrikam Fiber has a UI style guideline in place that we must adhere to.

Figure 17

Modifying the new button look

  1. As you are storyboarding, you can create your own shapes to reuse later. Select the new button that you just created, select the Add to My Shapes button, and name the new shape Fabrikam Button.

Note: Make sure you select the outer edge of the button shape (not the center part) in order to make the Add to My Shapes button available.

Figure 18

Creating a new, re-usable shape and adding it to our library

Note: You can import and export shapes to help build up a storyboarding library. In addition, you can click on the “Find more Storyboard Shapes online” hyperlink at the bottom of the Storyboard Shapes window.

  1. You can sometimes speed up the storyboarding process by reusing existing assets. In this case, let’s take a screen clipping of the rest of the existing Dashboard page, rather than adding an actual data grid and manually populating it with data. First, ensure that the Internet Explorer window currently showing the Fabrikam Fiber intranet portal is visible and not minimized. Finally, in the Storyboarding tab of PowerPoint, select the Screenshot drop down button and then select the Screen Clipping option.

Figure 19

Using a screen clipping to speed up storyboarding

  1. After PowerPoint minimizes itself to show the greyed-out Fabrikam Fiber Dashboard page, click and hold the left mouse button on the upper-left corner of the grid, move to the bottom-right to include Network Alerts, Messages, and so on, and then finally let the left mouse button up to select the region to use for the screen clipping.

Figure 20

Selecting the region to clip

  1. Back in PowerPoint, position and size the screen clipping so that it fits in nicely right below the Create New button.

Figure 21

Positioning the screen clipping in the storyboard

  1. Back to the scenario we are storyboarding, imagine that the employee sees this dashboard and is concerned about one of the tickets that has been open for a long time without resolution or escalation, so she decides to view it by clicking on the reference number link. This should then load a view that shows the service ticket details.

Figure 22

Location of service ticket hyperlinks

  1. Start storyboarding this scenario by creating a new slide using the same layout as before. The new slide should go right after the first one that you created.

Figure 23

Create another slide using the same template

  1. Next, add in some fake ticket details as shown below using the techniques shown in this lab so far. In addition, make use of the Street Map and Map Marker storyboarding shapes to help represent the location of the customer residence.

Note: Alternatively, you can load the “FF Storyboard - Finish” PowerPoint file from the shared documents library and then copy / paste the needed content to save time.

Figure 24

Storyboarding the second slide showing service ticket details

  1. When storyboarding in PowerPoint, you can also build in a representation for the flow of an application using hyperlinks from shapes. Select the first slide that shows the Dashboard, then select the image that shows the grid of tickets, and finally select the Hyperlink button in the Storyboarding tab.

Note: If we chose to create this slide using a proper grid from the Storyboard Shapes menu, instead of a screen clipping, we would be able to create a hyperlink from a specific cell instead.

Figure 25

Turning the grid into a hyperlink

  1. In the Insert Hyperlink window, select the Place in This Document option, choose the second slide, and select OK to create the link.

Figure 26

Selecting the slide that the grid will link to

  1. We can also take advantage of PowerPoint animations in order to improve the presentation of the storyboards. Return to the first slide if not already there and search for the “mouse pointer” shape in the Storyboard Shapes window. Drag and drop an instance of the mouse pointer onto the slide. This shape will be used to represent the user clicking on one of the service tickets on the Dashboard.

Figure 27

Mouse pointer shape will be used to simulate user interaction

  1. Make the mouse pointer shape larger so that it is easier to see.

Figure 28

Increasing mouse pointer size

  1. In the Animations tab, select the Add Animation drop-down and select the Custom Path option near the bottom (scroll down to find it).

Figure 29

Animating the mouse cursor shape with a custom path

  1. Use the mouse to draw a path from the current location of the Mouse Pointer shape to one of the service ticket hyperlinks (the grid is just a picture). To do this, hold the left mouse button down near the Mouse Pointer shape and draw a line to the hyperlink, letting go of the mouse button and pressing the Escape key when done.

Figure 30

Resulting path of the mouse cursor shape

  1. Press Ctrl+S to save your work back to Team Foundation Server.

Note: If you are prompted to refresh and try the save again, go ahead and do so.

  1. Press the F5 key to view the storyboard in presentation mode. Press the right arrow key to start the mouse cursor animation. When it reaches the hyperlink for the service ticket, press the right arrow key to navigate to the second slide. Press the Escape key when finished.
  2. At this point, let’s say that we have completed development of the storyboards and would like to link this file to a user story in Team Foundation Server. Select the Storyboard Links button from the Storyboarding tab in PowerPoint.

Note: If prompted to connect to a team project, go ahead and select the VSALM -> FabrikamFiberCollection ->FabrikamFiber team project and then connect.

Figure 31

Location of Storyboarding Links button

  1. In the Storyboard Links window, select the Link To button to link the storyboard to a work item.

Figure 32

Location of button to link storyboard to existing work item

  1. In the Choose Linked Work Items window, select the Title Contains search method, enter “service ticket”, and select the Find button.

Figure 33

Searching for the correct work item

  1. Select the work item with title “Service rep can view service ticket details from the dashboard” and then select the OK button.

Figure 34

Selecting the correct work item

  1. After the link has been made, you will see the work item in the Storyboard Links window. Select the Close button to finish.

Figure 35

Confirmation showing that the storyboard has been linked to a work item

Exercise 2: Eliciting Feedback with the Microsoft Feedback Client

In this exercise, you will learn about the new Feedback Client. During the course of software development, it is important to capture feedback from project stakeholders (end-users, product owners, and so on) to ensure that the progress the team is making is on track to meet the requirements that the stakeholders have in mind. It enables the capture of audio, video, screenshots, and other attachments to be linked to Team Foundation Server feedback work items.

  1. Log in as Annie, who is responsible for representing customer interests and user experience. All user passwords are P2ssw0rd.
  2. For our purposes in this lab, let’s assume that we would like to get some feedback on the Fabrikam Fiber intranet portal’s ability to edit customer records. In Internet Explorer, load the Fabrikam Fiber web access portal by clicking on the TFS FF Web Access link on the favorites bar. Under the Activities heading, select the Request feedback link.

Figure 36

Initiating a request for feedback

  1. In the Request Feedback window, select Brian Keller as the stakeholder to request feedback from. Use the Web Application option and enter the URL to the intranet site, In the textbox just under the URL, provide the instructions to go along with the web application, “Please use IE9 or higher.” Title the feedback request “Please provide some feedback on the current customer records editing functionality.” Also provide some instructions below the title text box, such as “Go to intranet portal, click on Customer link, then Edit link for any customer.”